How to Change MySQL Default Data Folder to another Folder
Today a client wanted to move his MySQL database to second hard disk. Moving MySQL database to its own hard disk improve IO performance as the hard disk only need to serve MySQL data, nothing OS related. This was a cpanel server, so start with stoping chkservd, so mysql or httpd will not start while i copy the files. First created a copy of MySQL database on second hard disk, which is mounted as /backup rsync -vrplogDtH /var/lib/mysql /backup/ Now stop chkservd, mysql and apache service chkservd stop service mysql stop service httpd stop Wait few minutes and run rsync again to update the database rsync -vrplogDtH /var/lib/mysql /backup/ We have now MySQL database copied to /backup/mysql folder. Rename orginal MySQL data files with mv /var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql_old Now edit /etc/my.cnf vi /etc/my.cnf You need to add following line datadir = /backup/mysql To start of the file. If datadir already set, you need to change path. Everything is finished, just restart mysql, apache and check