Mac OS 10.15.6 (19G2021) Catalina: Moving my MySQL data to an external disk

[Vihan Pandey]

Hello,

I am running Mac OS 10.15.6 Catalina on my laptop and I have MySQL mysql-8.0.21-macos10.15-x86_64 running.

I installed mysql-8.0.21-macos10.15-x86_64 through the DMG installer and I can start and stop MySQL with the preference pane in System Preferences.

I want to store my MySQL data on an external hard disk and continue running MySQL.

Please note: I have unchecked "Ignore ownership on this volume" on my hard disk -- lets call my external hard disk volume as mydisk

I did the following:

1) I copied my /usr/local/mysql-8.0.21-macos10.15-x86_64 directory to /Volumes/mydisk/mysql

I copied using ditto so I preserved permissions and ownership.

2) I stopped the MySQL service in the instance tab of the preferences pane

3) I went to the configuration tab of the preference pane and replaced /usr/local/ prefixes with /Volumes/mydisk/

Please note: I have not kept a Configuration File, so that option is unchecked.

I have kept the Base Directory, Data Directory, Plugin Directory, Keyring Data File, Error Log, and PID File enabled and the paths have the new prefix as I describe in 3)

4) I clicked Apply

5) I go back to the instance tab and click Start MySQL server, but the server does not start.

I am unsure what is going wrong, and I'm not sure how to debug the problem..

Please advise me how to proceed, and please let me know if you need any more information.

Please note that when I installed MySQL, I did not use the SHA1 passwords option.

Thank you!!

Best regards,

- Vihan