[Rails] *dont* empty the database...?

[Alan Bullock]

I'd like to test against a very large dataset - is there anyway to prevent 
the data in the test database being destroyed on each test run? storing the 
dataset in fixtures causes the tests to take several minutes to complete, 
even using csv fixtures, and that's just for one test case!

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to preserve the data in the test database
between test runs

thanks
al