How easy is it to move a mySQL database from 1 server to another?

[richblend]

Yo. Im starting a site where people wil register. They can upload things too, so its feasable that each member could take up 300kb of diskspace. However im not sure how big my traffic will be so im gonna use a modest hosting package at first. If i need to change to a better one later on, how easy is it to transer the databse accross? how do i do it? or maybe someone knows a hosting package that will completely grow with me, starting at 200MB and grow to 20,000 as the site grows??

Cheers in advance🆒

[pete_bisby]

Moving your MySQL data from one server to another is quite easy. Locate the data directory within MySQL - this will depend on where you have installed MySQL (e.g. /usr/local/mysql/data). The contents of the data directory are divided into the database names, where each directory is a database. Within each database directory are the files that describe your database, the table structure and the data itself.

Simply copy the whole data directory from the mysql directory of your old server to the mysql directory of the new server - and that's it !

[Norman_Graham]

Some (many) hosts won't let you do this. They simply won't give you access to the data directory - you're not the only person with files in there. It would only work if you have exclusive access to a data directory for the MySQL server. Check with the hoster for details.

To solve this, do a dump of your tables and run the dump files on your new hoster. If the new hoster hasn't got PHPMyAdmin, you can install it yourself in most cases. It's not a security risk for the hoster and the hoster's other customers.

Best o luck

Norm