For the purpose of this tutorial you must have "sudo" privileges.
We are going to add a second drive to our system, partition it according to our needs, format and finally mount to a created directory.
Assuming the drive is physically attached to the system and detected by the bios, let's see how Ubuntu has assigned the disk by typing the following command:
sudo lshw -C disk
In most cases, Ubuntu has assigned the system drive "logical name" as "/dev/sda" and the second drive as "/dev/sdb". If there is a third drive it would be "/dev/sdc" and so on. Take note of the "logical name" of the drive you wish to add. We will be using "/dev/sdb" for this tutorial.
From the output below of command sudo lshw -C disk we can see that there are 2 disks attached to my system and our target drive has the "logical name" of "/dev/sdb".
*-disk
description: SCSI Disk
product: 00AAKS-00V1A0
vendor: WDC WD50
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@3:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sdb
serial: 152D20337A0C
size: 465GiB (500GB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: ansiversion=2 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512 signature=33284869
*-disk
description: ATA Disk
product: ST500LT012-1DG14
vendor: Seagate
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: SDM1
serial: SBY7218P
size: 465GiB (500GB)
capabilities: gpt-1.00 partitioned partitioned:gpt
configuration: ansiversion=5 guid=583b84cd-5418-4932-acb8-0c4f253d1035 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=4096
If partitions already exist on the drive type sudo fdisk /dev/sdb followed by d to delete the partitions and w to write the changes. Be carefull as this will delete any data on the drive.
To partition and format a drive 2TB and lower continue using "fdisk". This will ultimately partition the drive using "mbr" partition table. If your kernel supports "gpt"(and most modern kernels do) regardless of size, continue on with Parted.
Type:
sudo parted /dev/sdb
Let's set the partition table to "gpt", type:
mklabel gpt
Now we create the primary partition using the entire disk:
mkpart primary 0GB 500GB
Now exit Parted by typing:
quit
To confirm all went well, type:
sudo fdisk -l
The following output should confirm the "Disklabel type" and that the primary partition is "/dev/sdb1":
Disk /dev/sdb: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
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: D3C27E53-F077-4774-99C8-99276CD8F9A2
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 976773119 976771072 465.8G Linux filesystem
Since we are using the most modern Ubuntu system for this tutorial we are going to use the "ext4" filesystem. You can use a different filesystem like "ntfs" if this drive is going to be shared with a Windows/Ubuntu network using Samba.
Now let's use the "mkfs" command to format the disk partition:
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
This could take some time depending on the size of the drive. When done, you should see this output:
mke2fs 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
/dev/sdb1 contains a ext4 file system
last mounted on /target on Sun Dec 23 11:33:15 2018
Proceed anyway? (y,N) y
Creating filesystem with 122096384 4k blocks and 30531584 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 14523919-682c-4668-8004-d5c9aeb2b2b7
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
Mounting in Ubuntu is much different then Windows. It uses a file system instead of drive letter association. Therefore, each drive must be mounted within a directory.
Ubuntu(server and desktop) already has the "/mnt" directory created. So to keep things simple we are going to use this directory and create a sub-directory. This sub-directory can have any name you choose. I am going to be using this drive for media files, so "/media" it is.
We use the "mkdir" command to create our sub-directory like so:
sudo mkdir /mnt/media
We need to remove all permissions for this sub-directory:
sudo chown nobody:nogroup /mnt/media
Now that we have created our mount point and removed all permissions, we need to give our sub-directory the necessary permissions so it can be readable, writable and executable by any user on the system. Type:
sudo chmod 777 /mnt/media
Note: An essential learning process in Ubuntu/Linux is most definitely "permissions". Get to learn this aspect and know who you share data with, or it could be the last time you see your vacation photos! So make a backup.
Now let's mount our drive:
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/media
Check if mounted:
lsblk
From the output we can see "/dev/sdb1" mounted in "/mnt/media":
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 512M 0 part /boot/efi
└─sda2 8:2 0 465.3G 0 part /
sdb 8:32 0 465.8G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:33 0 465.8G 0 part /mnt/media
Our drive is now temporarily mounted until next reboot. This is fine if we are using a USB key. But what we want is a drive that is automatically mounted at each reboot. To do this we need to edit a configuration file called "fstab".
To permanently mount our drive open the "fstab" file using "vi" editor:
sudo vi /etc/fstab
The file should look like this:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=852b0aa1-0f9b-4fe2-a676-2054836509ba / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=A6D3-9D83 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
/swapfile none swap sw 0 0
~
~
~
"/etc/fstab" 12L, 665C 1,1 All
To begin editing this file press the i key. Use the "Arrow" keys to navigate to the end of the last line and press enter. Type this line:
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/media ext4 defaults 0 2
The file should look like this after typing line:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=852b0aa1-0f9b-4fe2-a676-2054836509ba / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=A6D3-9D83 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
/swapfile none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/media ext4 defaults 0 2
~
~
"/etc/fstab" 13L, 704C 13,38 All
Now hit the Esc key followed by :wq to write and quit the file.
Now the drive is permanently mounted and can be used by any user on the system.
You may wish to share this drive to the network. If this being the case please follow my NFS tutorial.