To move a chunk manually, we need to issue the following command after connecting to mongos and the admin database:

> db.runCommand( { moveChunk : 'mongo_books.books' ,
                find : {id: 50},
                to : 'shard1.packtdb.com' } )

Using the preceding command, we move the chunk containing the document with id: 50 (this has to be the shard key) from the books collection of the mongo_books database to the new shard named shard1.packtdb.com.

We can also more explicitly define the bounds of the chunk that we want to move. Now the syntax is as follows:

> db.runCommand( { moveChunk : 'mongo_books.books' ,
                bounds :[ { id : <minValue> } ,
 { id : <maxValue> } ],
                to : 'shard1.packtdb.com' } )

Here, minValue and maxValue are the values that we get from db.printShardingStatus().

In the example used previously, for chunk2, minValue would be -6 and maxValue would be 0.