Bitcoin Forum

Hi all,

I've been using Armory for a while, and I'm very happy with in. However, the blockchain is now approximately 25GB, and the Armory databases are approximately the same again. My poor old 256GB SSD is filling right up.

Is there a way to migrate the Bitcoin blockchain and Armory databases to an external drive? Any help here is appreciated.

Thanks,
~LU

Here are the steps. I'm assuming that you're running Windows 7 (or earlier) and the external drive is D:

It looks really long, but it's not actually that bad. The only reason it looks so long is that I spelled out every step in detail assuming that you're not really a "Windows person" (if you are, I'm not being intentially condescending....)

1. Create 3 new directories. D:\AppData, D:\AppData\Bitcoin and D:\AppData\Armory.
2. Start Armory, go to File -> Settings, and change the Bitcoin Home Dir setting to D:\AppData\Bitcoin then click Save.
3. Quit Armory.
4. Click the Start (Windows) button, then Run, and type in this then click OK: %appdata%\Bitcoin
5. You'll need to copy all of the files in this folder to D:\AppData\Bitcoin. One way to do this is by pressing Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-C, then typing D:\AppData\Bitcoin into the address bar (pressing F6 first will put your cursor in the address bar), and the pressing Ctrl-V.
6. Return to the address bar, type in this then press the Enter key: %appdata%
7. Rename the Bitcoin folder to Bitcoin-unused.
8. Return to the address bar, type in this then press the Enter key: %appdata%\Armory\databases
9. You'll need to copy all of the files in this folder to D:\AppData\Armory. One way to do this is by pressing Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-C, then typing D:\AppData\Armory into the address bar, and the pressing Ctrl-V.
10. Return to the address bar, type in this then press the Enter key: %appdata%\Armory
11. Rename the databases folder to databases-unused.
12. Click the Start (Windows) button, then find Bitcoin Armory, but don't click on it yet.
13. Instead of left-clicking on Bitcoin Armory as you normally would to start it, right-click on Bitcoin Armory, then click on Properties.
14. In the target field, move the cursor to the far right (past this part: ArmoryQT.exe") and then add a space to the end and add this: --dbdir=D:\AppData\Armory
15. Click OK.
16. Click the Start (Windows) button, then find Bitcoin Core, but don't click on it yet.
17. Instead of left-clicking on Bitcoin Core as you normally would to start it, right-click on Bitcoin Core, then click on Properties.
18. In the target field, move the cursor to the far right (past this part: bitcoin-qt.exe") and then add a space to the end and add this: -datadir=D:\AppData\Bitcoin
19. Click OK.
20. Start Armory normally, and let it finish syncing, and then quit Armory.
21. Back in Windows Explorer, return to the address bar, type in this then press the Enter key: %appdata%.
22. Verify that there is no Bitcoin folder present. If so, delete the Bitcoin-unused folder.
23. Double-click the Armory folder.
24. Verify that there is no databases folder present. If so, delete the databases-unused folder.
25. AT YOUR OWN RISK: empty your Recycle Bin.

Anytime you upgrade Armory, you'll need to repeat steps 12 - 15. Likewise, anytime you upgrade Bitcoin Core, you'll need to repeat steps 16 - 19. Hopefully, that should be it.

It's working!! Thanks so much for writing such clear instructions!

I just had to run bitcoin-qt.exe -datadir=D:\AppData\Bitcoin between step 19 and 20.

Cheers,
~LU