Adding Another Internal Drive (Solved)

[cirehawk]

I currently have a 500GB IDE drive in my system.  I set up an audio server on my machine so I can stream my music over the web and to my android phone.    I also have a 1TB external USB drive that is full of music.  I can set the audio server to stream music from the external and it works for a while, but it eventually crashes the server.  I've decided to buy a 2 or 3 TB drive to add to my system and have a couple questions.

1) When I add the drive should PCLOS automatically detect it and configure it properly, or will I have to manually modify fstab?

2) This sort of ties in with question 1, but how should I handle the mount points?  When I first installed I created a \home partition and a \ partition (I let the system handle everything off of the \ partition).  Will the new drive be incorporated into the existing mount points, or do I need to manually do it?  If manual, any suggestions?

3) I assume there should be no issues mixing IDE and SATA.  Does anyone see a problem with this?

Looking forward to your inputs.

Eric.....

[muungwana]

Is the drive an internal or external one?

The system should automatically detect it but you will have to configure it. You can do that by going to "hardware -> browse and configure hardware -> hard disks" in pcc.

When you are there, click the disk you want to configure and then click the "run config tool" button and then a new window will show up, you can configure where the drive is to be mounted there

You can click your way through there as explained above or go there straight from the terminal by running the following command as root:

drakdisk

You can put the mount point anywhere you want, i would recommend at "/mnt", thats where mount points on internal drivers are usually placed, mount points from extrnal drives usually are placed at "/media"

It shouldnt matter what drive it is  as long as your hardware can support it.

[Bald Brick]

The system will probably detect the new drive automatically. But it won't mount the partitions on it automatically. And before you use them you may want to format them with the filesystem of your choice.

Regardless of whether the drive is internal or external you can let the system mount its partitions semi-automatically when you, for instance, click their icons in the places side-panel in Dolphin or Konqueror. If the drive is removable this is probably what you should let the system do.

The drawback is that then the mountpoint(s) will always be somewhere under /media. (If you label a partition on the drive, its mountpoint will be /media/<label>; if you don't, it will be something less descriptive.)

If the drive is an internal one or if you don't plan on unplugging it too often, it should probably get a permanent mountpoint defined in /etc/fstab. Then you can mount it wherever you want to.

You can let PCC (diskdrake) handle both the formatting and setting up the mountpoint -- or you can do it manually.

But in both cases you have to know where you want it mounted (or to be precise: where you want the partitions on the drive mounted).

A subdirectory of /mnt would be a good semi-permanent mountpoint. But the /mnt directory is mainly intended for temporary mounts. So if you really want the drive to be a permanent part of your system you might want to mount it somewhere else.

Where? That depends entirely on how you intend to use your drive.

If it's mainly for storing data (text files, pictures, music, movies) -- and if you have several users that all should have access to it, then you might want to create a /data directory under / and mount it there. This is decidedly a non-standard mountpoint but it may be the most practical one.

But if you only have one main user you should decidedly mount the drive (or the partitions on it) somewhere in that user's home directory.

(And, of course: if you want to move some part of your system onto your new drive, that will decide what the mountpoint should be.)

Then you can let PCC do the work. You just have to do the thinking.

[cirehawk]

Thanks for the input.  It will be an internal SATA drive I am installing. Regarding the mount point, since /mnt already exists for my current drive will the new drive be added to it if I use /mnt?  I guess what I'm wondering is if when using dolphin (or any tool to look at the file system), will the new drive look like it's part of my current storage or will it show up as a separate drive?  I hope that makes sense.

[cirehawk]

The system will probably detect the new drive automatically. But it won't mount the partitions on it automatically. And before you use them you may want to format them with the filesystem of your choice.

Regardless of whether the drive is internal or external you can let the system mount its partitions semi-automatically when you, for instance, click their icons in the places side-panel in Dolphin or Konqueror. If the drive is removable this is probably what you should let the system do.

The drawback is that then the mountpoint(s) will always be somewhere under /media. (If you label a partition on the drive, its mountpoint will be /media/<label; if you don't, it will be something less descriptive.)

If the drive is an internal one or if you don't plan on unplugging it too often, it should probably get a permanent mountpoint defined in /etc/fstab. Then you can mount it wherever you want to.

You can let PCC (diskdrake) handle both the formatting and setting up the mountpoint -- or you can do it manually.

But in both cases you have to know where you want it mounted (or to be precise: where you want the partitions on the drive mounted).

The /mnt directory is mainly intended for temporary mounts. If you really want the drive to be a permanent part of your system you might want to mount it somewhere else.

Where? That depends entirely on how you intend to use your drive.

If it's mainly for storing data (text files, pictures, music, movies) -- and if you have several users that all should have access to it, then you might want to create a /data directory under / and mount it there. This is decidedly a non-standard mountpoint but it may be the most practical one.

But if you only have one main user you should decidedly mount the drive (or the partitions on it) somewhere in that user's home directory.

(And, of course: if you want to move some part of your system onto your new drive, that will decide what the mountpoint should be.)

Then you can let PCC do the work. You just have to do the thinking.

Thanks BB.  I am the main user of this system, but my 2 boys have accounts on the machine and get on there every now and then for surfing to kid games.  My existing 500GB drive is nowhere close to full.  As I said in my original message, I'm installing it mainly to copy the 1TB of music I have on my external to it.  I don't really want to mount it under my home directory, so I'll have to give it some thought.  I don't mind using a non-standard directory like /data (or something similar).

[Bald Brick]

Thanks for the input.  It will be an internal SATA drive I am installing. Regarding the mount point, since /mnt already exists for my current drive will the new drive be added to it if I use /mnt?  I guess what I'm wondering is if when using dolphin (or any tool to look at the file system), will the new drive look like it's part of my current storage or will it show up as a separate drive?  I hope that makes sense.

All drives that you add to a Linux system become parts of the same filesystem. So if you mount something on /mnt/mydrive it will just show up as a folder under /mnt. (But if you set it up manually you have to create the mountpoint before the partition is mounted. So let PCC do it.)

Anyway, you don't have to bother about drives C, D or E in Linux.

[Bald Brick]

Thanks BB.  I am the main user of this system, but my 2 boys have accounts on the machine and get on there every now and then for surfing to kid games.  My existing 500GB drive is nowhere close to full.  As I said in my original message, I'm installing it mainly to copy the 1TB of music I have on my external to it.  I don't really want to mount it under my home directory, so I'll have to give it some thought.  I don't mind using a non-standard directory like /data (or something similar).

I'd either create /data as the mountpoint, or possibly /mnt/music.

But you have the third option of treating the drive as if it were removable even if it isn't. In other words, you could let HAL mount it for you and your boys with a click in Dolphin or Konqueror. If you label the partition on the drive "Music" it will always be mounted as /media/Music.

[cirehawk]

Thanks for the input.  It will be an internal SATA drive I am installing. Regarding the mount point, since /mnt already exists for my current drive will the new drive be added to it if I use /mnt?  I guess what I'm wondering is if when using dolphin (or any tool to look at the file system), will the new drive look like it's part of my current storage or will it show up as a separate drive?  I hope that makes sense.

All drives that you add to a Linux system become parts of the same filesystem. So if you mount something on /mnt/mydrive it will just show up as a folder under /mnt. (But if you set it up manually you have to create the mountpoint before the partition is mounted. So let PCC do it.)

Anyway, you don't have to bother about drives C, D or E in Linux.

Thanks again.  I've actually been off Windows and using PCLOS for years.  I've just never added a drive after my initial installs..  I assumed it was straight forward, but thought I'd ask to be sure.  I will definitely let PCC do it.  I guess I phrased my question wrong about the the drive becoming part of the file system.  What I was really getting at (and you answered anyway) was if it would automatically create a mount point under /mnt or did I have to give it a name. 

[Bald Brick]

Thanks for the input.  It will be an internal SATA drive I am installing. Regarding the mount point, since /mnt already exists for my current drive will the new drive be added to it if I use /mnt?  I guess what I'm wondering is if when using dolphin (or any tool to look at the file system), will the new drive look like it's part of my current storage or will it show up as a separate drive?  I hope that makes sense.

All drives that you add to a Linux system become parts of the same filesystem. So if you mount something on /mnt/mydrive it will just show up as a folder under /mnt. (But if you set it up manually you have to create the mountpoint before the partition is mounted. So let PCC do it.)

Anyway, you don't have to bother about drives C, D or E in Linux.

Thanks again.  I've actually been off Windows and using PCLOS for years.  I've just never added a drive after my initial installs..  I assumed it was straight forward, but thought I'd ask to be sure.  I will definitely let PCC do it.  I guess I phrased my question wrong about the the drive becoming part of the file system.  What I was really getting at (and you answered anyway) was if it would automatically create a mount point under /mnt or did I have to give it a name.  

So I suppose you got your answer. But to recapitulate:

If you don't do anything the partition(s) on the drive will be mounted under /media when you click the drive in the Places panel in Dolphin or Konqueror. The mountpoint (/media/<mountpoint>) will be created on the fly. Precisely what the mountpoint will be called depends on whether the mounted partition has a label or not. If it has one, the mountpoint will be /media/<label>; if it doesn't have one the mountpoint will be something like /media/disk.

But if you want the drive (or actually a partition on it) to be mounted on a folder under /mnt or somewhere else, or if you want it to be mounted at boot or with some particular options, then you first have to create a mountpoint and then you have to add a line to /etc/fstab. I'd do it manually (because that would be faster) but PCC will obligingly do it for you.

The /media folder is intended for removable media, and the /mnt folder for temporary mounts, but don't let that bother you....

[cirehawk]

Thanks again.  Since the drive is internal I will give it a mount point in PCC, and I definitely want it to mount automatically at boot time.  I've never been real comfortable with fstab, so I think I'll lett PCC handle it.   

[horusfalcon]

Hmm... trying to add something useful to the discussion:

It may help to know how the oncoming SATA drive will be identified by the system, and how that compares to IDE drives in Linux.

Usually, IDE drives mounted internally are identified as /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, and so forth.  IDE optical drives may also fall in this list as well (for example, the DVD drive on my wife's PCLinuxOS machine is /dev/hdc)

USB devices, and SATA devices will typically be identified as /dev/sda, dev/sdb, etc.  The SATA drive in my laptop is /dev/sda.

Partitions on a drive are numbered, and partitions 1 - 4, inclusive are set aside for Primary partitions, while those from 5 onward are Extended partitions.  The hard drive in my laptop is partitioned into sda1, sda5, and sda6 since it only has one active Primary partition.

If you are going to install that monster 3TB drive, please consider partitioning it into manageable chunks or you will wind up with one great big honkin' mess of a file system.

Are you using a motherboard that supports IDE and SATA on the board, or using a plug-in card for the SATA drive?  If it's the latter case, you'll want to be sure the plug-in board is compatible with PCLinuxOS.  (Are you certain you're using an IDE hard drive presently?  500 GB IDE drives were kinda rare anyhow, and are becoming more so with the passage of time.  Performance-wise, you'd probably like SATA better, anyhow, if the drives spin quickly enough.)

I'd better stop or I'll have written War & Peace here.

Hope it goes well for you.

Later On,
D

[Old-Polack]

horusfalcon:

Outdated information. All drives are now seen as SCSI drives, and have been since 2.6.2x.x. Not sure of exactly which was the first we used, as Texstar patched some of the earlier ones to keep the /dev/hdx designation for a while, during the early stages of the transition.

[horusfalcon]

horusfalcon:

Outdated information. All drives are now seen as SCSI drives, and have been since 2.6.2x.x. Not sure of exactly which was the first we used, as Texstar patched some of the earlier ones to keep the /dev/hdx designation for a while, during the early stages of the transition.

See?  I knew someone would update me.  Thanks, O-P.  I've been getting rusty on all this, I guess.  (Hey, I've only been playin' with this Linux stuff since about 1996...)

Was there a reason to get away from using the old IDE drive nomenclature?  I always thought that was actually a rational way to identify drives, and that lumping SCSI, SATA, USB, and Lord knows what else all under "sdX" was a bit ambiguous, but that's just me, I guess.

I also note that my USB DVD/RW drive is labeled as /dev/sr1. I suppose that's a "SCSI Removable" drive?

At least I was right to warn about making sure any add-on cards are compatible...

Later On,
D

[Old-Polack]

horusfalcon:

Outdated information. All drives are now seen as SCSI drives, and have been since 2.6.2x.x. Not sure of exactly which was the first we used, as Texstar patched some of the earlier ones to keep the /dev/hdx designation for a while, during the early stages of the transition.

See?  I knew someone would update me.  Thanks, O-P.  I've been getting rusty on all this, I guess.  (Hey, I've only been playin' with this Linux stuff since about 1996...)

Was there a reason to get away from using the old IDE drive nomenclature?  I always thought that was actually a rational way to identify drives, and that lumping SCSI, SATA, USB, and Lord knows what else all under "sdX" was a bit ambiguous, but that's just me, I guess.

I also note that my USB DVD/RW drive is labeled as /dev/sr1. I suppose that's a "SCSI Removable" drive?

At least I was right to warn about making sure any add-on cards are compatible...

Later On,
D

The change was because the IDE tree was so filled with cruft it needed a total rewrite, and the kernel maintainers decided it wasn't worth the trouble to rewrite, and maintain two trees, when one could work for both. My biggest complaint was the 15 partition limit on large SCSI drives, and the drive designation shifting. The latter is solved by either UUID= or LABEL= designations, and now there is no longer any practical limit on partition numbers, so I've come to terms with the situation, labeled all my partitions, and don't worry about it anymore.

[cirehawk]

Hmm... trying to add something useful to the discussion:

It may help to know how the oncoming SATA drive will be identified by the system, and how that compares to IDE drives in Linux.

Usually, IDE drives mounted internally are identified as /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, and so forth.  IDE optical drives may also fall in this list as well (for example, the DVD drive on my wife's PCLinuxOS machine is /dev/hdc)

USB devices, and SATA devices will typically be identified as /dev/sda, dev/sdb, etc.  The SATA drive in my laptop is /dev/sda.

Partitions on a drive are numbered, and partitions 1 - 4, inclusive are set aside for Primary partitions, while those from 5 onward are Extended partitions.  The hard drive in my laptop is partitioned into sda1, sda5, and sda6 since it only has one active Primary partition.

If you are going to install that monster 3TB drive, please consider partitioning it into manageable chunks or you will wind up with one great big honkin' mess of a file system.

Are you using a motherboard that supports IDE and SATA on the board, or using a plug-in card for the SATA drive?  If it's the latter case, you'll want to be sure the plug-in board is compatible with PCLinuxOS.  (Are you certain you're using an IDE hard drive presently?  500 GB IDE drives were kinda rare anyhow, and are becoming more so with the passage of time.  Performance-wise, you'd probably like SATA better, anyhow, if the drives spin quickly enough.)

I'd better stop or I'll have written War & Peace here.

Hope it goes well for you.

Later On,
D

I appreciate your input horus.  I know OP corrected you on a few things, but I'll answer one or two of your points.  I am certain the drive is an IDE drive.  I used to pick up hard drives when they would have a good sale at my favorite electronics store (Fry's Electronics for those on the US west coast).  I had one last one laying around and didn't want to waste it even though it's IDE.  I'm also certain my motherboard supports both IDE and SATA.  I could just re-install everything onto the new drive when I get it, but I really don't want to go through that (plus the IDE drive is working just fine).  I probably won't get the 3TB, but the 2TB is plenty big as you say.  I suppose I should break it up into multiple partitions as you suggest, but the only stuff I plan to put on it is music and maybe video.  The existing 500GB drive is plenty enough to hold my personal documents.  My home partition on it is 420GB and I still have 90% of that free.