Copy data from one table to another - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have two tables one is not associated with my rails application invtypes and items table which is associated with my application.
Table invtypes has 20.000 records that i need to move to items table.
Now my first attempt was to simply do a ActiveRecord query on invtypes to get all entries and then go over each entry and create a new Item by instantiating a new Item model adding attributes and then calling model.save
However this also does validation and few other things that slow down making this a 30min task executed in Rails Console since i will be doing this a few times i can't have it be so slow.
So my second idea was to try this with plain old query no Models however this now gives an error:
←[1m←[35m (27.0ms)←[0m INSERT INTO items (typeID, name, description, volume, price, created_at, updated_at) VALUES (0, '#System', '', 0.0, 0.0, '20
13-03-29 04:06:27 +0100', '2013-03-29 04:06:27 +0100');
ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: Mysql2::Error: Incorrect datetime value: '2013-03-29 04:06:27 +0100' for column 'created_at' at row 1: INSERT INTO ite
ms (typeID, name, description, volume, price, created_at, updated_at) VALUES (0, '#System', '', 0.0, 0.0, '2013-03-29 04:06:27 +0100', '2013-03-29 04:
06:27 +0100');
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_mysql_adapter.rb:2
33:in `query'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_mysql_adapter.rb:2
33:in `block in execute'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:280:in
`block in log'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.1/lib/active_support/notifications/instrumenter.rb:20:in `instrume
nt'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:275:in
`log'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_mysql_adapter.rb:2
33:in `execute'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/mysql2_adapter.rb:214:in `e
xecute'
from (irb):21:in `block in irb_binding'
from (irb):19:in `each'
from (irb):19
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:47:in `start'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:8:in `start'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands.rb:41:in `<top (required)>'
from script/rails:6:in `require'
Due to Time.now
result = ActiveRecord::Base.connection.select_all( "SELECT * FROM invtypes" )
time = Time.now
result.each do |row|
sql = "INSERT INTO items (typeID, name, description, volume, price, created_at, updated_at) VALUES (#{row["typeID"]}, '#{row["typeName"]}', '#{row["description"]}', #{row["volume"]}, #{row["basePrice"]}, '#{time}', '#{time}');"
ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute(sql)
end
How can i go about this with Ruby/Rails or should I write a app in Java | C to execute this query ?
Only executes 10 rows then throws:
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_mysql_adapter.rb:2
33:in `query'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_mysql_adapter.rb:2
33:in `block in execute'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:280:in
`block in log'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.1/lib/active_support/notifications/instrumenter.rb:20:in `instrume
nt'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:275:in
`log'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_mysql_adapter.rb:2
33:in `execute'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.1/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/mysql2_adapter.rb:214:in `e
xecute'
from (irb):7:in `block in irb_binding'
from (irb):4:in `each'
from (irb):4
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:47:in `start'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:8:in `start'
from C:/RailsInstaller/Ruby1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.1/lib/rails/commands.rb:41:in `<top (required)>'
from script/rails:6:in `require'
from script/rails:6:in `<main>'

Answer 1

You could try this:
time = Time.now.to_formatted_s(:db)

Answer 2

SQL queries and inserts within a loop are slow. Try with INSERT..SELECT, that command will insert all the rows that you selected with the second statement. I don't know what DB are you using, but for example, if you are using MySQL you can take a look at the documentation of the statement.