Ive set up a ubuntu server and it working great for my house at uni (much better than the Router that was playing up )

Anyway, the server was built from an old machine of mine from a few years back and so is a little dated but performs as a server with no probems. However it only has a 15Gb HDD and we were considering as using it a a central file storage for our house (a bunch of students ). What I was wondering is if I instal another HDD into the system how would this work with the linux file system, Im really inexperienced as Ive used windows mainly in the past. Would the hard drive just be added automatically and then increase the storage (hope that makes sense) or would I have to mount it, if so could I mount it to the /home/ directory? as I just want to increase the storage for all house mates so we can dump files on there. Or would I do this disrupt the present /home directory?

Thanks in advance

Uni

I don't think you can have 1 diroctory for 2 partitions, at least not in aν obvious way

you can create a new directory inside /home/ directory and mount it there.

Thankyou for your quick reply

I'll set up a public folder and give all users read and write priveleges. I wasnt too optimistic about mounting in the same directory I thought it would screw it up

Thanks again!!!
Uni

A new drive would not be automatically seen, and it certainly wouldn't mount into the linux file structure on its own.

The "simplest" thing to do might be to plug the new drive into the slave cable for IDE. Then edit your /etc/fstab, and set something like Then you could set up vsftp or apache to use that directory (/data) as its local root, and give everyone read/write permissions.

Other possibilities include making the new drive your /home partition, which takes a little bit more work, but isn't too bad. Google or look here for how to move /home from one disk to another. Also if you're going to do that, make sure you have knoppix or some other live distro around, so you can save things if they get screwed up.

peace,
JimBass

You could split data across two or more volumes if you use LVM (Logical Volume Management), but for casual home installations that's not commonly done.

Normally, you shut down the machine, and install the drive, setting the master/slave switches properly. Then reboot the machine. You should see the drive appear as /dev/hdb, c, or d but it won't yet be ready for storage.

Now, as root, you run a tool like parted to format and partition the drive. You can choose a variety of filesystems with Linux. Once you do that, you can add the drive to /etc/fstab and mount the drive.

There are many guides, including right here on this site, which discuss the topic at length.