I understand fdisk can list the /dev/SDX things. However, I feel it's less helpful when the drives are exactly the same size (and sometimes brand and sometimes similar volume label).

I use (dabble with!) Linux Mint on a USB stick. There was a time I encountered a problem, searched and found USB Image Writer and USB Stick Formatter to be the solution I wanted.

Of course, it asked me, "Are you sure this is the correct drive?"

I was _reasonably_ sure, but I didn't want to accidently do the equivalent of rm -rf / on the drive I was using!

It was then that I found the difficulty of distinguishing drives. I tried fdisk, and tried gparted, and dmesg, and I can't remember what else, but since they were the same size, I found the volumes were difficult to distinguish. I could easily *SEE* which drive I wanted in the file manager (especially when I could look at the files inside) but I couldn't pick it or get more information from there! Right-clicking only gave me the option to umount, and Properties wasn't much more helpful.

In the end, I think I just gave up (TBH, it's been a while, I've forgotten), but just the other day, I was irritated with Caja for some reason and now I'm file manager-hunting. While I'm at it, I wonder if there is any file manager out there that can do what I'm asking.

I am quite grateful the properties show the directory where the drives are mounted, but it would be wonderful if it were possible to right-click on the drive, look at the properties, and just see, yes, this is /dev/sdc1 or /dev/sdc2 or whatever.

You could change the labels, or you could give your mount points names you can remember: /mnt/system, /mnt/stuff etc.

The problem is, the "/dev/SDX things" as you call them are device nodes. They (generally) don't contain directories/files that you would recognise. That's the job of filesystems - which usually reside in partitions, not raw devices.

After similar issues with reformatting the wrong (internal) hard disk, I now make sure everything mounted is of different physical size. Doesn't really solve your issue, but works for me.

@linux_walt : Thanks. Luckily, as I said, the file manager is kind enough to give me the mount points. However, the utilities are looking for the /dev/SDX name.

IIRC now, I used df -h in the end, plugging and unplugging the device, but that solution seems so very clunky.

@syg00 : Thanks. As I said, I'm a dabbler, but I'm trying to get more into Linux now, and Linux-on-a-stick is the way for me. But my drives tend to be the same size (what's on sale at the time), so changing the drive sizes isn't really ideal.

I'm a little dismayed, if an experienced person like you *still* has to make sure things that are mounted are of different sizes to be able to more easily distinguish between them, then this implies that there is no simple (sorry, graphical) way to point to a device and get what device node it's using. If the system can auto-magically mount drives, can't it tell me which node it used? <wry>

[though I must say, a million kudos to the ones who made auto-magic mounting work!!! It is SUCH a lifesaver. I remember having to mount things by hand and messing with fstab files (ahem! not always successfully)... such a pain!]

For to be precise you should look usb disk drive serial number in dmesg output and the corresponding allotted device name.

For hard disks you can use 'hdparm -I /dev/sdx' and see it's description (serial number) to identify precisely.

I tend to use the output of "df -h" and/or "mount" to find which disk is mounted where -- but that does rely upon having set mount points for each disk, which is helped by labelling them as mentioned above.

If I understand well you need to use uuids, and mount by uuid. That will cause you can mount the same device using the same mount point (it it was already known). And you can have mount points like:
/my/pendrive
/my/phone
/wife/phone
/whatever
/something_else
You need to configure all those uuids only once. You can also check the devices at /dev/disk/by-<something>

Dear all,

It looks like my hope for a graphic point-and-click solution is a non-existent feature. :/ Thanks for all the suggestions, though. Your time and effort very much appreciated.