Mounting Drives¶
This server uses multiple USB hard drives that remain constantly connected. We need these drives to mount on system startup, for this, we'll need to set up the fstab.
Getting Drives' UUIDs¶
In order to get the UUIDs of the drives in question, it is necessary to plug them in and reboot the server. Once this is done, execute the following:
lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,UUID
This will give an output similar to the following:
NAME FSTYPE UUID
sda
├─sda1 vfat 7811-FFBE
└─sda2 ext4 3c98de9f-dc43-4e8d-85aa-767475ea957b
sdb ext4 418987da-2351-11e9-aec8-b8975ad7798b
sdc
└─sdc1 ext4 43fbd170-3eff-40ec-95fc-c6cc090a5bc9
sdd
└─sdd1 ext4 fe650c70-60fc-400a-8241-27895d38c29a
sde
└─sde1 ext4 fedd9ed1-d4cf-4d3c-b105-7b3296f157b4
If you cannot tell which drive is which, you can also run the following:
sudo fdisk -l
Which will give out an output similar to the following:
Disk /dev/sdb: 1.82 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: Hitachi HUA72302
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/sda: 223.57 GiB, 240057409536 bytes, 468862128 sectors
Disk model: CT240BX500SSD1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 18C45280-7C95-4D8C-8033-81277842D6FF
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 2203647 2201600 1G EFI System
/dev/sda2 2203648 468858879 466655232 222.5G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/sdc: 7.28 TiB, 8001563221504 bytes, 15628053167 sectors
Disk model: Expansion Desk
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: C581269E-50B9-4FFC-878C-4036680EF540
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdc1 2048 15628052479 15628050432 7.3T Microsoft basic data
Disk /dev/sdd: 3.64 TiB, 4000787027968 bytes, 7814037164 sectors
Disk model: EXTERNAL_USB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: CB907ACB-024A-4CAC-A2F0-6A2B5B2C448D
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdd1 2048 7814037130 7814035083 3.6T Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/sde: 3.64 TiB, 4000752599040 bytes, 7813969920 sectors
Disk model: Elements 25A2
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: C3D4170B-C744-3D4F-BFF7-AA72B51971AE
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sde1 2048 7813969886 7813967839 3.6T Linux filesystem
Notice the Device value for each, reference it with the output from the previous command and you'll now be able to tell the identifier of the partitions you need.
Preparing the Folders¶
We'll mount the hard drives in /media, for this we'll create the required folders like so:
sudo mkdir /media/sata_2tb /media/usb_4tb /media/usb_4tb_2 /media/usb_8tb
You may also change the ownership on these folders if it causes any problem.
sudo chown 1000:1000 /media/sata_2tb /media/usb_4tb /media/usb_4tb_2 /media/usb_8tb
Modifying fstab¶
Danger
Proceed at your own risk, messing up this file will most probably break your computer. You can still fix it by entering safe mode and logging in as root to rollback.
We'll modify the /etc/fstab file.
sudo nano /etc/fstab
And we'll add a new line for each hard drive with the following structure:
UUID=$UUID $DIR $FORMAT defaults 0 0
In our case, we'll add the following lines:
UUID=418987da-2351-11e9-aec8-b8975ad7798b /media/sata_2tb ext4 defaults 0 0
UUID=43fbd170-3eff-40ec-95fc-c6cc090a5bc9 /media/usb_8tb ext4 defaults 0 0
UUID=fedd9ed1-d4cf-4d3c-b105-7b3296f157b4 /media/usb_4tb ext4 defaults 0 0
UUID=fe650c70-60fc-400a-8241-27895d38c29a /media/usb_4tb_2 ext4 defaults 0 0
Finally, reboot the server. The hard drives should now be automatically mounted.