Move root site collection

Question

Is it possible in SP13 to move a root site collection to another location/path in the same Web Application, and then create a new root site collection ?

So if I have a Web Application SharePointTest.mydomain.com/ is it possible to move it without any errors to new location SharePointTest.mydomain.com/sites/NewPath or SharePointTest.mydomain.com/NewPath (if I create a managed path) ?

I tried using Export/Import but that didnt work. Then i tried Backup/Restore and that was a little better, but some sites were down because the links were pointing wrongly after the restore.

Answer 1

Yes, You can move it. But one thing you keep in mind if you hard coded the URL in your sites then those will cause the issue and you have to manually adjust it.

Couple of options to move it.

1) Moving using the PowerShell tool.

• Move-Spsite

  Move-SPSite http://servername.com/sites/sitename -DestinationDatabase ContentDb2

Only catch in this case, you have to perform the IIS reset in the farm.

• Now create the root level site collections.

• Now time to test it.

2) Using the Backup & Restore

• backup-SPSite
• Delete the Root level Site collection
• Restore-SPSite
• Create a Root level Site collection Now test it.

3) Using the Export & Import.

• Create new Site collection using the powershell with this command

New-SPSite http:///sites/test -OwnerAlias "DOMAIN\JDoe"

• Export-SpWeb
• Import-SpWeb On newly created site collection.
• Delete the Root level site collection
• create new root level site collection
• testing time.