wow 
That should have been something I tried; well it looks like I'll be making a script cause I have no desire to type the path every time.
Thanks for the heads up!

So I decided to move my node files to an external HDD.
Everything is running well and bitcoind is redownloading the blockchain.

However, when trying to use bitcoin-cli to check on status and connections it is unable to find where my bitcoin.conf is located; even though bitcoind knows where it is exactly.
Is there a file that I need to edit? I have been unable to find anything online and also did a search here (but I may have missed it).

If you need any more information from me I'll be happy to provide.

thanks.

edit: i am running satoshi:0.11.0