How can I tell where mongoDB is storing data? (its not in the default /data/db!)

Question

My host came with a mongodb instance and there is no /db directory so now I am wondering what I can do to find out where the data is actually being stored.

Answer 1

I find db.serverCmdLineOpts() the most robust way to find actual path if you can connect to the server. The "parsed.storage.dbPath" contains the path your server is currently using and is available both when it's taken from the config or from the command line arguments.

Also in my case it was important to make sure that the config value reflects the actual value (i.e. config didn't change after the last restart), which isn't guaranteed by the solutions offered here.

db.serverCmdLineOpts()

Example output:

{
    "argv" : [ 
        // --
    ],
    "parsed" : {
        "config" : "/your-config",
        "storage" : {
            "dbPath" : "/your/actual/db/path",
            // --
        }
    },
    "ok" : 1.0
}