How can I move a MySQL database to another drive?

Question

I'm using MySQL 5.5 on a local machine to analyze a large amount of government data. I've created a local database that resides on my default drive (Win7 C: drive). I'd like to store the data on my E: drive, a large eSATA external drive.

What steps should I take?

Answer 1

1. Shutdown mysql.
2. Move all the files in your current data directory to the new location (check out the location in step 3 - datadir parameter).
3. Locate my.ini file (it is in the mysql installation directory). Change datadir parameter value to point to the new location.
4. Start mysql.

Answer 2

Solution 1:

1, First of all, backup your data using mysqldump.
2, If you install Mysql Server from official package, you can do it by running program MySQLINstanceConfig.exe from bin directory of your server.
3, Import data

Second solution (not recommended, but works on same machine)

1, Stop Mysql server.
2, Copy data from your data directory to your new directory
3, Open my.cnf file (In my case "C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.5\my.ini")
4, find row like datadir="C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.5\data\" and change path to your new location
5, Start your server