Bitcoin Forum

Is it possible to bring your wallet from your pc desktop to an external harddisk?
I have bitcoin core, but the download takes so much place on my harddisk, that i would like to bring it to my external harddisk. Is that possible. Can i keep my wallet on my pc and start a new one on my external disk? Or can i copy everything from my pc to my external harddisk? Or do i have te start with downloading everything again on my external harddisk?

Yes. You can copy the entire Bitcoin Core datadir from your internal drive to the external drive. You will have to always start Bitcoin Core with the -datadir option so that it knows where to look for the datadir though.

What do you mean with the datadir? I am not familiar with all these therms.

The datadir is the data directory. It is where your wallet, the blockchain, and other files that Bitcoin Core needs. It does not contain the binaries to run Bitcoin Core though. That is in the installation directory.

To find your datadir, open Bitcoin Core and go to Help > Debug Window. In the Information tab, you should see a field labeled "datadir" and a file path next to it. That path points to the datadir. Cut and paste that folder to your external drive. Then stop Bitcoin Core and start it with the -choosedatadir option. See https://achow101.com/2016/07/Bitcoin-Core-Troubleshooting#option-startup for help with that. That option will open up a dialog for you to choose your datadir. Choose wherever you put the datadir and you should be good to go. Starting with that option only needs to be done once.

Thanks for the help; i think i will try it tomorrow with more time. Because i think the copying of that 100 GB will take as well some time.

I have doen this, but when i want to start up bitcoin with my link on my taskbar, i Always have an error. I do Always have to start with clinking right and than choose "als administrator uitvoeren" (this is in my language). Than i can open my wallet.
In my debug is see the following lines :

2016-11-05 13:01:02 Default data directory C:\Users\Hoofdgebruiker\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin
2016-11-05 13:01:02 Using data directory F:\bitcoin
2016-11-05 13:01:02 Using config file F:\bitcoin\bitcoin.conf

I have moved everything from my C-drive to my external harddisk F.
Is there a way so that when i click on my link, i go directly to my F and i don't have to use the link "als administrator uitvoeren" (this is in Netherlands, don't know how it is called in english.

I imagine that means something like "run as administrator", right? That means that there is a permissions problem. Right click on your drive and look at it's properties. Make sure that you are allowed to read and write to the drive.

It is indeed 'run as administrator'. I have been looking at the properties and everybody has permission.

When i click on the link with my left button i get this error
"kan geen lock krijgen op gegevensmap F:Bitboin. Bitcoin core draait waarschijnlijk al. Toegang geweigerd."

I think this means in english

can not get a lock on map F:Bitcoin. Bitcoin core is probably already running. Access denied.

Ok.. Go to the folder containing data directory. Make sure that the properties of the data directory give your user full permissions. Then go inside the data directory. Make sure that Bitcoin Core is not running. If you see a file named .lock, delete it. Then try starting Bitcoin Core again.

I have deleted that file .lock
But now bitcoin doesn't start at all anymore

I can start again as well by the button 'run as administrator'

That's interesting.

How does it not start? Does it give you an error or does nothing happen?

Can you post the debug.log file?

i see this in my debug window after startin up with 'run as administrator'

I think the problem is solved. Now i could start normally. NOt everody had permission to the F as you mentioned above. I have changed this.
I think it works perfect now.
Thanks for the help. I hope it will stay now the good direction.

Almost two weeks further and complete blockchain is almost downloaded. It takes a lot of time. The last two weeks i have been downloading every day about 5 hours. Does it go so slowly because i send the download to an external disk?

Possibly. The bottleneck may also be on your RAM or CPU as the blockchain is being validated as it is being downloaded. Also keep in mind that the whole thing is 90+ Gb now.

The whole blockchain is indeed very big. At this moment 97.7 GB and I am still at six weeks which have to be downloaded. It goes very slow especially for the last year. That's why i have bought an external disk of 1TB. I hope to be good for many years now, because on my pc, the harddisk was almost full with the programs and the blockchain.

I have just finished with downloading the whole blockchain with bitcoin core 0.13.1.
I am very glad and everything went perfect.
It tooks now exactly 100 GB on my harddisk. As i followed it a little bit during the download the biggest part of the GB i downloaded was during the last year. WHere is this going to within a few years?
I have a question. Is it possible when you have bitcoin core on your computer (external harddisk) to install another kind of wallet as electrum or so, which needs less space as i read here on other posts.If yes, is it than possible to use the same dat.file as from your bitcoin core wallet?

It will be even bigger. Right now it grows at most 144 MB per day. Once segwit deploys, it can be as much as 576 MB per day but will most likely be 288 MB per day. If BU were to somehow get consensus then there is potential that it could grow at most 4608 MB per day, but that is extremely unlikely. With BU, we really have no idea.

Yes you can install another wallet software. No you cannot share the wallets across software.

Yes you can install another wallet software. No you cannot share the wallets across software.
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So i can install for example 'electrum' wallet. But i cannot use my dat.file from my bitcoin core wallet, even if i delete my bitcoin core wallet?
They only possibility than is to send my BTC from my bitcoin address in bitcoin core to a new address in my electrum wallet? Is that correct?

Electrum does not use the same format as Bitcoin Core.

Yes. That is the recommended way since the seeds protect your addresses from being misplaced and simplifies the entire process. However, if you need a specific address, you can export it from Bitcoin Core and import it into Electrum.

Electrum does not use the same format as Bitcoin Core.

Yes. That is the recommended way since the seeds protect your addresses from being misplaced and simplifies the entire process. However, if you need a specific address, you can export it from Bitcoin Core and import it into Electrum.
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Thanks for the clear explanation. From the moment i have some problems with my bitcoin core wallet and it keeps on going slower en slower, i think i will choose electrum. I have been reading here several topics about all kind of wallets and i have read that a lot of people find electrum a good wallet.

The synchronization of Bitcoin Core will be slower at the end since the blocks nearing the future are mostly filled and your computer will take more time to verify them. Electrum, as with most Bitcoin clients does not offer much privacy since it leaks the address to the server as compared to Bitcoin Core but it is indeed much more user friendly.