How To Improve Runtime Performance Of Reading File Program

I'm currently trying to read 150 million lines (from a data file with bio-sequencing information) using Python. Currently, it's reading at 20,000 lines per second which would take

Solution 1:

1. Printing to the screen is expensive compared to disk reads. If you must check performance as you go along, only print something out every 1000 lines or more.
2. As for using other languages, almost all languages call the OS to do the real work anyway.