How to move wallet to removable drive and keep watch only wallet in laptop

[BTCetera]

My intention is to keep the wallet in a removable drive and leave only the watch wallet in the laptop.

After creating the actual wallet, I created a watch only wallet in armory. I then shut it off and moved the main wallet files (_.wallet and _backup.wallet) from %appdata%/armory) to a removable drive. Now, when I want to use to main wallet, I have to import it into Armory (right?). So,

A) Do I have to remove the wallet from Armory every time I am done using it?

B) Do I need to copy the laptop wallet files to the removable drive before I do step A above?

C) I also moved the Bitcoind files to the flash drive. This way I can just take this removable drive to any computer which has Armory installed and use my main wallet without even having to wait for full download/process (I understand I have to change settings in the Armory before launching it). Do I have this right?

D) Can I specify that Armory should use and leave the wallet in the removable drive? This way I don't have to deal with A and possibly B.

TIA

[etotheipi]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

[BTCetera]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

How to pass paths with spaces to Armory's datadir parameter? I tried quotes, double quotes, backslashes, nothing worked. The syntax in windows is per program, it doesn't obey the shell's rules. The wiki is of no help for this situation.

[RoadStress]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

Thank you for those commands. I have a slight problem. Why does Armory needs Bitcoin Home Dir if it's building it's own database? Right now my Bitcoin folder is 13GB and Armory folder is 14.5GB. Why the double space? Can't i just delete the Bitcoin Home Dir after Armory makes it's database?

[BTCetera]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

Thank you for those commands. I have a slight problem. Why does Armory needs Bitcoin Home Dir if it's building it's own database? Right now my Bitcoin folder is 13GB and Armory folder is 14.5GB. Why the double space? Can't i just delete the Bitcoin Home Dir after Armory makes it's database?

That's not how it's supposed to work. Only one bicoind datadir is needed. You can delete one of those datadirs (delete the folder whose .lock file has the oldest timestamp). IF a 2nd folder gets re-created next time you start Armory, then you have a problem somewhere.

[RoadStress]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

Thank you for those commands. I have a slight problem. Why does Armory needs Bitcoin Home Dir if it's building it's own database? Right now my Bitcoin folder is 13GB and Armory folder is 14.5GB. Why the double space? Can't i just delete the Bitcoin Home Dir after Armory makes it's database?

That's not how it's supposed to work. Only one bicoind datadir is needed. You can delete one of those datadirs (delete the folder whose .lock file has the oldest timestamp). IF a 2nd folder gets re-created next time you start Armory, then you have a problem somewhere.

No i don't have 2 Armory folders. I have a default Bitcoin-qt folder and one Armory folder. On Armory settings i see that i have the option to let armory run bitcoin-qt in background and i have one option to setup bitcoin install dir and another option to setup bitcoin home dir. The bictoin home dir (the one found in Roaming that holds your wallet) is the same size as armory wallet dir. Can i delete Bitcoin home dir? If yes then why is it present in the Armory settings?

[BTCetera]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

Thank you for those commands. I have a slight problem. Why does Armory needs Bitcoin Home Dir if it's building it's own database? Right now my Bitcoin folder is 13GB and Armory folder is 14.5GB. Why the double space? Can't i just delete the Bitcoin Home Dir after Armory makes it's database?

That's not how it's supposed to work. Only one bicoind datadir is needed. You can delete one of those datadirs (delete the folder whose .lock file has the oldest timestamp). IF a 2nd folder gets re-created next time you start Armory, then you have a problem somewhere.

No i don't have 2 Armory folders. I have a default Bitcoin-qt folder and one Armory folder. On Armory settings i see that i have the option to let armory run bitcoin-qt in background and i have one option to setup bitcoin install dir and another option to setup bitcoin home dir. The bictoin home dir (the one found in Roaming that holds your wallet) is the same size as armory wallet dir. Can i delete Bitcoin home dir? If yes then why is it present in the Armory settings?

Yes, 1 folder is blockchain data, maintained by bitcoind. The other is wallet data, maintained by Armory. If you have two folders at 10+GB it's very likely you have duplicate blockchain data, hence my advice to delete one of them (and how to find out which one to DL). A blockchain data dir from bitcoind is the one that contains file called bitcoin.conf.

[RoadStress]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

Thank you for those commands. I have a slight problem. Why does Armory needs Bitcoin Home Dir if it's building it's own database? Right now my Bitcoin folder is 13GB and Armory folder is 14.5GB. Why the double space? Can't i just delete the Bitcoin Home Dir after Armory makes it's database?

That's not how it's supposed to work. Only one bicoind datadir is needed. You can delete one of those datadirs (delete the folder whose .lock file has the oldest timestamp). IF a 2nd folder gets re-created next time you start Armory, then you have a problem somewhere.

No i don't have 2 Armory folders. I have a default Bitcoin-qt folder and one Armory folder. On Armory settings i see that i have the option to let armory run bitcoin-qt in background and i have one option to setup bitcoin install dir and another option to setup bitcoin home dir. The bictoin home dir (the one found in Roaming that holds your wallet) is the same size as armory wallet dir. Can i delete Bitcoin home dir? If yes then why is it present in the Armory settings?

Yes, 1 folder is blockchain data, maintained by bitcoind. The other is wallet data, maintained by Armory. If you have two folders at 10+GB it's very likely you have duplicate blockchain data, hence my advice to delete one of them (and how to find out which one to DL). A blockchain data dir from bitcoind is the one that contains file called bitcoin.conf.

Well the wallet data by Armory has a folder in in called "databases" which holds the folders "leveldb_blkdata" and "leveldb_headers". On the other hand Bitcoin-qt has a folder named "blocks". Since the Armory folder is created during the first start up then i assume i can safely delete the "blocks" folder from Bitcoin-qt, but i'm waiting for another opinion first.

[etotheipi]

Don't delete it!

Both are needed.  Right now.  The easiest implementation for RAM reduction was to move all the operations from RAM to disk, and I required a full index of everything.  This also gives me the opportunity to have a remote instance of Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind running, and Armory maintains its own block data.

Once this version is stable, I can implement a much lighter version, which doesn't store/duplicate the entire blockchain.  It's just that Armory currently assumes it has full access to everything, and I didn't want to have to battle those things with this overhaul.  Plus, as I said, there's a use case for the full DB version.

A future version will not duplicate all data.  The default will be to store a much lighter version of the DB and request data from Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind if needed...

[BTCetera]

Don't delete it!

Both are needed.  Right now.  The easiest implementation for RAM reduction was to move all the operations from RAM to disk, and I required a full index of everything.  This also gives me the opportunity to have a remote instance of Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind running, and Armory maintains its own block data.

Once this version is stable, I can implement a much lighter version, which doesn't store/duplicate the entire blockchain.  It's just that Armory currently assumes it has full access to everything, and I didn't want to have to battle those things with this overhaul.  Plus, as I said, there's a use case for the full DB version.

A future version will not duplicate all data.  The default will be to store a much lighter version of the DB and request data from Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind if needed...

I wanted to help and I ill-advised because I only have one folder > 10GB related to Armory/Bitcoind on my machine.

[RoadStress]

Don't delete it!

Both are needed.  Right now.  The easiest implementation for RAM reduction was to move all the operations from RAM to disk, and I required a full index of everything.  This also gives me the opportunity to have a remote instance of Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind running, and Armory maintains its own block data.

Once this version is stable, I can implement a much lighter version, which doesn't store/duplicate the entire blockchain.  It's just that Armory currently assumes it has full access to everything, and I didn't want to have to battle those things with this overhaul.  Plus, as I said, there's a use case for the full DB version.

A future version will not duplicate all data.  The default will be to store a much lighter version of the DB and request data from Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind if needed...

Thank you.No problem. Just wanted to be sure how they work.

[BTCetera]

Start Armory with the " --datadir=/path/to/armory/dir/with/wallets"

Similarly, you can move the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory by starting bitcoin with " -datadir=X" and starting Armory with " --satoshi-datadir=X" (replace X with the path)

How to pass paths with spaces to Armory's datadir parameter? I tried quotes, double quotes, backslashes, nothing worked. The syntax in windows is per program, it doesn't obey the shell's rules. The wiki is of no help for this situation.

My problem is solved: I renamed the folders in the path so that none have a space.

The question remains unanswered. Sooner or later, someone is going to ask the same question, unless they were able to figure it out (via trial and error, since as noted there is no set windows syntax for this purpose). Hopefully when they do, they will share the info with us.

[BTCetera]

I keep the wallet folder (--datadir) and the blockchain folder (--satoshi-datadir) on a pendrive. I am hoping that I can install armory on any computer, start Armory with the two parameters pointing to my pendrive and be up and running very quickly.

Am I missing something?

[etotheipi]

I keep the wallet folder (--datadir) and the blockchain folder (--satoshi-datadir) on a pendrive. I am hoping that I can install armory on any computer, start Armory with the two parameters pointing to my pendrive and be up and running very quickly.

Am I missing something?

That should be correct.  Hope you got a big thumb drive though.  A lot of block data...

Not sure about the paths with spaces.  They are always a problem, everywhere.  I try to handle it, but it really is a painful process.

[BTCetera]

I keep the wallet folder (--datadir) and the blockchain folder (--satoshi-datadir) on a pendrive. I am hoping that I can install armory on any computer, start Armory with the two parameters pointing to my pendrive and be up and running very quickly.

Am I missing something?

That should be correct.  Hope you got a big thumb drive though.  A lot of block data...

Not sure about the paths with spaces.  They are always a problem, everywhere.  I try to handle it, but it really is a painful process.

It's 64gb. Should be good for at least one more year, no?

Would you say this is more secure modus operandi than keeping the wallet in the laptop?

Thank you