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[How-To] Mount and Use a New Drive in Ubuntu

Purpose

This is a general purpose doc aimed at solving for additional drives being mounted in Ubuntu and then this doc explaining how to find, mount, and use them. 

Prerequisites

List of prerequisites:

  • Sudo user
  • Ubuntu Operating System

Mounting and Using New Drive

Step 1: Verify New Storage Availability

Before we can do anything with the new storage device, we need to verify that it is available. This is what you would do after installing an additional hard drive in a server, or adding a virtual hard drive to a VM. You can check the available physical storage devices with the below command:

lsblk

Or you could use this:

fdisk -l

Likely what you are looking for in Ubuntu if you only have the OS drive, is something at the bottom of the list like /dev/sdb. This is your new drive. 

If you only see your singular OS drive or you don't see the new drive you added, do not proceed as the Operating System can't see the new drive. 

Step 2: Format and Mount the Disk in Ubuntu

Assuming your disk device is /dev/sdb (replace with your actual device), partition and format the disk assuming its new and blank:

sudo parted /dev/sdb -- mklabel gpt
sudo parted -a optimal /dev/sdb mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Then, create a mount point:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/immich/photos

Next, mount the disk:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/immich/photos

Finally, check for successful mounting:

df -h | grep /mnt/immich/photos

If you don't see the correct size of the new drive, it didn't work. Revisit steps and try again.

Step 3: Make Mount Permanent in FStab

Get the UUID of the partition:

sudo blkid /dev/sdb1

Edit /etc/fstab:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add a line like:

UUID=your-uuid-from-blkid  /mnt/immich/photos  ext4  defaults  0 2

Save and Exit. Now, update the daemon:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Then, unmount and remount:

sudo umount /mnt/immich/photos
sudo mount -a

Finally, run your check command again and verify you have the correct drive size showing:

df -h | grep /mnt/immich/photos

You have successfully formatted, partitioned, and mounted a new drive for use in Ubuntu.

 

 

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