How to Transfer a Database to a Different Server (Directory Style)

You don't even need mysqldump if you're moving a whole database schema, and you're willing to stop the first database (so it's consistent when being transfered)

1. Stop the database (or lock it)
2. Go to the directory where the mysql data files are.
3. Transfer over the folder (and its contents) over to the new server's mysql data directory
4. Start back up the database
5. On the new server, issue a 'create database' command.'
6. Re-create the users & grant permissions.

I can't remember if mysqldump handles users and permissions, or just the data ... but even if it does, this is way faster than doing a dump & running it. I'd only use that if I needed to dump a mysql database to then re-insert into some other RDBMS, if I needed to change storage options (innodb vs. myisam), or maybe if I was changing major versins of mysql (but I think I've done this between 4 & 5, though)