InnoDB vs. MySQL performance Issue

[Sameh Attia]

Hi,
I have a system running MySQL 3.23.41. I read many times about InnoDB performance and that it is superior to the MyISAM one. I have a table 'sessions' in a MyISAM format with about 20 milion records. Its size is 2.5 GB; the index file is 1.1 GB. In mysql client I entered the following command 'alter table sessions type=innodb' while these settings were in my.cnf
innodb_data_home_dir=/path/to/the/database/dir
innodb_data_file_path=backup/ibdata:3072M:autoextend
set-variable = innodb_buffer_pool_size=128M
set-variable = innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=64M
set-variable = innodb_log_file_size=32M
set-variable = innodb_log_buffer_size=16M

The command took about 10 hours to complete. Is this normal?
Also when it finished I issued the follwoing statement on another copy of the table in MyISAM format; it took about 5 mins
SELECT ip,no,count(*) AS term,SUM(CEILING(session_time/60)*60) AS total,AVG(CEILING(session_time/60)*60) AS average FROM sessions GROUP BY ip;

while when it was issued on the InnoDB one it took me 30 mins to give up and shutdown the server with no luck.
Whats wrong? could anyone help? Im sure that InnoDB is good so it seems I missed something could anyone point me?
Regards

--
Sameh Attia
Senior System Engineer
T.E. Data
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