Hi guys,

I have a simple FTP server running on 2 harddisk.
1 is holding the system kernel and such,
1 is holding the /home partition with all the users' files.

I have plans to upgrade the /home harddisk to a higher capacity.
Remounting is not an issue. I suppose copying existing files are not an issue.

But what is the fastest way to deploy the harddisk such that it will maintain the quota and user directories, with its respective permissions, set initially?

thanks!

I'm no authority, so take this advice with a grain of salt. Here's how I made the transition on my desktop.

1) if you can connect the new drive along with the other two, partition and format the new drive using your favorite partition tool and the mkfs command.

2) make a mount point to mount the drive: mkdir /mnt/newdrive.

3) mount the new drive: mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/newdrive (where X and Y refer to the drive letter and partition number).

4) taking a quote from an example given by LQ member Saikee:
Modify the disk and partition numbers to suit your situation.

Edit /etc/fstab to add a line for the new drive and partition to be mounted at /home, and comment out or delete the line for the existing /home partition.

Use whatever means you feel necessary to verify that you have a good copy of /home in /mnt/newdrive.

5) reboot.

If you intend to remove the old disk, your drive letter may change for the new drive, and you may need to edit /etc/fstab to account for that change.

but will this port over quota management and folders/files permissioning?

Add the lowercase -p option to tar (tar -pcf ....) to preserve permissions.

As for quotas, that is setup in a config file in /etc, isn't it. If so, quotas should'nt be affected by the change of hard drive until you edit the applicable config file.

ah ok... cos my quotas are set to /home...

i'll give this a try.. and let you guys know in due time the result. thanks!