Order by Random

[Jose de Leon]

select * from mytable order by rand() ;

Is the above statement efficient as it can be or can random ordering be
achieved more efficiently?

I am using MySQL 3.23.14-alpha only because I need the ability to order by
rand() and I noticed documenation claiming to support this feature.

Problem is that it appears to be slow for large tables.  I am only using a
table that is 27,000 records and it took 40 seconds to output.  This table
will grow to about 400,000 records.

Thanks,
Jose