Crashed table on my mysql database

Hi all,

I have a table on my database that is about 15m rows. Yesterday I saw that the table had crashed and needed to be repaired.

I issued the repair quick command in the mysql command line and left it at work for several hours until I saw my site had been taken down due to 'Too many connections'.

Does anyone have any ideas of how I can repair my table without knocking down my site and how I can take better care of my tables in the future?

I appreciate the help and am happy to do the reading if you know of any relevant articles.

Thanks!

-Nicky