# 5 Billion Records, 10 Terabytes, Four Weeks: A Real Data Migration Playbook

DevFeed: [5 Billion Records, 10 Terabytes, Four Weeks: A Real Data Migration Playbook](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/5-billion-records-10-terabytes-four-weeks-a-real-data-migration-playbook-22629.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.wix.engineering/post/5-billion-records-10-terabytes-four-weeks-a-real-data-migration-playbook>)

Author: Wix Engineering

Published: 2026-09-02T07:27:50Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Wix Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/wix-engineering.md>)

Topics: [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/migration.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>), [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [API](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/api.md>), [Logging](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/logging.md>), [Tech Debt](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/tech-debt.md>)

Tags: [api](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/api.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [database](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/database.md>), [logging](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/logging.md>), [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/migration.md>), [tech-debt](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tech-debt.md>)

## AI overview

This Wix engineering article presents a data migration playbook based on lessons from large and complex migrations. It argues that success depends less on changing tooling than on identifying recurring problems before migration begins, especially by auditing inconsistent source data, implementing a read phase, and logging suspicious fields and structures. It also outlines using a V2 API, an API proxy, population-based rollout, change data capture, continued synchronization, and eventual decommissioning of V1.

## Source excerpt

By the time you finish reading this, someone at Wix is probably in the middle of a data migration. We've run migrations that lasted anywhere from a few months to two years. More recently, we've completed large and complex migrations in a few weeks. The difference wasn't the tooling, which barely changed. It was that we had finally learned which problems show up in every migration, and started dealing with them before the migration began instead of in the middle of it. Recap: Why We Migrate,...