title: Moving data from a multi node Cassandra cluster to a single node instance
body: <p>I currently have a script that invokes <code>bin/sstable2json</code> on all files of the pattern <code>/var/lib/cassandra/data/fake-keyspace/*-Data.db</code> and saves the output from std out to disk. However the exported files are starting to take 10x the space of the all files in <code>/var/lib/cassandra</code></p>
  
  <p>I took this approach after reading the following section <a href="http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/Operations#Import_.2BAC8_export" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/Operations#Import_.2BAC8_export</a></p>
  
  <p>What are some of the best practices for get data out from one cluster to another? Just to be clear, I am not trying to add additional nodes to a ring, but rather move data out of one ring to another in a process that is repeatable.</p>
  
  <p>Any help or nudge in the right direction would be much appreciated.</p>