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I'm using a 500GB HDD as my primary storage (mounted as /, no LVM) but it's running low on storage and not enough for my current and future data need (storing a lot of data and installing games). I'm think of buying an used 500GB HDD (because they are very cheap) so what should I do to extend my current storage?
I'm thinking of two possible option:
1. Setup an LVM on the new HDD and moving all of the data from the current HDD to the new HDD, and add the current HDD to the LVG. Which I don't think a good option since I have to move data which take a lot of time and if one drive fails, all of my data will be lost (I don't know if this is true). I have backed up all of my important data (which is not much but can't be easily recreated), and all of the large files are re-downloadable from the Internet, but it would be a pain to re-download all of them.
2. Setup the new HDD as an additional data storage, then moving all of the large files to it and use it to store those files only. So how do I setup it like that? Should I use ext4 as the filesystem (My current primary storage is ext4)? And how to setup it like an additional /home extension (Every user own their directory, everyone else without permission can't read or write). Do I have to create a directory for each user and set chown and chmod manually (and how to do it properly) or there are a command doing that automatically (like when useradd -m). I would like to auto-mount it so I will add it to fstab. But where I should mount it (is /mnt/UUID is a good option)?
And extended S.M.A.R.T is enough to check its condition or I should run a 4-pass rw badblocks on it with random parttern?
Last edited by huupoke12 (2020-01-15 07:52:24)
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About your point (2), you mount your second drive as for example "/data". That "/data" location will be owned by root. You then create a sub-folder for your user in there, so something like "/data/huupoke". You make that sub-folder owned by your user account and you set permission same as what you see in /home. Your user will then afterwards be able to work inside that "/data/huupoke" location like normal, without 'sudo'.
Your user will have two locations with full access rights, first the normal home you already have:
/home/huupoke
And a new, second location:
/data/huupoke
You can at this point move things from your home to this second location. You can create links in your home that point to somewhere in /data. Or instead of creating links, you can of course directly use programs to work with things /data.
For example with Steam, it keeps all of its files in ~/.local/share/Steam. You can either copy your whole Steam from your home to /data and then replace the folder in your home with a link that points to /data. Or, you can keep your normal Steam library in your home and create a separate, second Steam library somewhere in /data. Steam has a feature for that in its settings window.
Your last question about badblocks or the long SMART test... I was never patient enough to do anything like that with a new drive. Something like a "full format" in Windows when creating a new filesystem, or using the "-c = check for bad blocks" argument of mkfs.ext4, that just takes a super long time to complete on a HDD. And if you decide to get an SSD instead of an HDD: running badblocks will make the SSD controller think the drive is 100% full which it really doesn't like.
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Regarding your question about S.M.A.R.T and badblocks I would check new HDD disk by command 'smartctl -a /dev/new_drive', then by options -t short, -t conveyance, -t long, once more -a, and if everything went good then I wouldn't use badblocks.
For SSD, NVME drives you may use smartctl and nvme-cli tools.
Badblocks is tool to use if you have read/write problems with drive to confirm (or exclude) that it have "badblocks", so avoid to use it with good drive.
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