How to move your Chia Database to a new disk

One of the best new features of the Chia Blockchain 1.3 beta is the ability to migrate to version 2 of the Chia Database. This process is detailed here. But one of the issues with this is that the database is already big and doing the migration actually consumes another 50% of space while its building the new database structure. Some people may want to move their database to another drive before starting this process, or simply need to because they are running low on space.

If you want to permanently move your database and are comfortable with the process of managing non default config.yaml options then SpaceFarmers has a great guide here. If you want to move your database just temporarily or you would prefer to leave your Chia configuration as close to default as possible then you can follow these steps here. This guide will be focused on Windows, but the principles work on Linux and can be easily translated.

1. Shut down your Chia node cleanly
2. Open Windows Explorer
3. Browse to the mainnet folder on your primary hard drive under your user profile. On Windows this will be %USERPROFILE%\.chia\mainnet\
4. Move the db folder to the desired destination. For this example we will use d:\
5. Open an Administrative command prompt window
6. Type cd %USERPROFILE%\.chia\mainnet\
7. Type mklink /d db d:\db (change the destination d:\db to match your actual target)
8. That’s it. Restart Chia.

This process will enable you to move the Chia database around without altering the config as %USERPROFILE%\.chia\mainnet\db will still direct to the same content to the Chia application. This process is called a symlink or symbolic link, and is supported on all major platforms. If you are using Linux the process is here, and if you are using MacOS it is here.