Add new file system linux

How to Create a New Ext4 File System (Partition) in Linux

The ext4 or fourth extended filesystem is a widely-used journaling file system for Linux. It was designed as a progressive revision of the ext3 file system and overcomes a number of limitations in ext3.

It has significant advantages over its predecessor such as improved design, better performance, reliability, and new features. Although it is best suited for hard drives, it can also be used on removable devices.

This article will show you how to create a new ext4 file system (partition) in Linux. We will first of all look at how to create a new partition in Linux, format it with the ext4 file system and mount it.

Note: For the purpose of this article:

• We will assume that you have added a new hard drive to your Linux machine, in which you will create the new ext4 partition, and
• If you are operating the system as an administrative user, use the sudo command to gain root privileges to run the commands shown in this article.

Creating a New Partition in Linux

List the partitions using the fdisk -l or parted -l commands to identify the hard drive you want to partition.

List Linux Partitions

Looking at the output in the screenshot above, we have two hard disks added on the test system and we will partition disk /dev/sdb .

Now use parted command to start creating the partition on the selected storage device.

Then create a partition using the mkpart command, give it additional parameters like “primary” or “logical” depending on the partition type that you wish to create. Then select ext4 as the file system type, set the start and end to establish the size of the partition:

Create a New Ext4 Partition

To print the partition table on the device /dev/sdb or detailed information about the new partition, run the print command.

Print Partition Table

Now exit the program using the quit command.

Formatting New Ext4 Partition

Next, you need to properly format the new partition with the ext4 file system type using the mkfs.ext4 or mke4fs command as follows.

Format a New Ext4 Partition

Then label the partition using the e4label command as follows.

Mounting New Ext4 Parition in File System

Next, create a mount point and mount the newly created ext4 partition file system.

Now using the df command, you can list all file systems on your system together with their sizes in a human readable format (-h) , and their mount points and file system types (-T) :

Show Linux Filesystem with Mount Points

Lastly, add the following entry in your /etc/fstab to enable persistent mounting of the file system, even after a reboot.

You might also like to read these following related articles:

That’s all! In this article, we’ve explained how to create a new partition in Linux, format it with ext4 file system type and mount it as a filesystem. For more information or to share any queries with us, use the feedback form below.

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How to Add a New Disk Drive to a Linux Machine

This article helps you to configure and add a new disk to the Linux box. This is one of the most common problems encountered by system administrators these days since the servers are tending to run out of disk space to store excess data. Fortunately, disk space is now one of the cheapest. We shall look at the steps necessary to configure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. x to add more space by installing the disk.

Contents

• Mounted Filesystems or Logical Volumes
• Getting Started
• Finding the New Hard Drive in RHEL 6
• Creating Linux Partitions
• Creating a Filesystem on an RHEL 6 Disk Partition
• Mounting a Filesystem
• Configuring RHEL 6 to Automatically Mount a Filesystem

Mounted File-systems or Logical Volumes

One very simplest method is to create a Linux partition on the new disk. Create a Linux file system on those partitions and then mount the disk at a specific mount point so that they can be accessed.

Getting Started

This article assumes that the new physical hard drive has been installed on the system and is visible to the operating system.

Finding the New Hard Drive in RHEL 6.x

Assuming the drive as visible to the BIOS, it should automatically be detected by the operating system. Typically, the disk drives in a system are assigned to a device name beginning with hd or sd followed by a letter to indicate the device number. For example, the first device might be /dev/sda, the second /dev/sdb and so on.

The following is the output from a system with only one physical disk drive –

This shows that the disk drive is represented by /dev/sda itself divided into 2 partitions, represented by /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2. The following would be the output for the same system if we attach second hard disk drive.

As shown above, the new hard drive has been assigned to the device file /dev/sdb. Currently, the drive has no partitions shown (because we have yet to create any).

At this point, we have a choice of creating partitions and file systems on the new drive and mounting them for access or adding the disk as a physical volume as part of a volume group.

Creating Linux Partitions

The next step is to create one or more Linux partitions on the new disk drive. This is achieved using the fdisk utility which takes as a command-line argument on the device to be partitioned.

As we can see from the above, the fdisk output of the disk currently has no partitions because it is a previously unused disk. The next step is to create a new partition on the disk, a task which is performed by entering “n” (for new partition) and “p” (for primary partition)

In this example, we only plan to create one partition which will be partition 1. Next, we need to specify where the partition will begin and end. Since, this is the first partition, we need to start at the first available sector and as we want to use the entire disk to specify the last sector at the end. Note that, if you wish to create multiple partitions, you can specify the size of each partition by sectors, bytes, kilobytes or megabytes.

If we now look at the devices again we will see that the new partition is visible as /dev/sdb1:

The next step is to create a filesystem on our new partition.

Creating a File System on an RHEL 6.X Disk Partition

We now have a new disk installed, it is visible to RHEL 6 and we have configured a Linux partition on the disk. The next step is to create a Linux file system on the partition so that the operating system can use it to store files and data. The easiest way to create a file system on a partition is to use the mkfs.ext4 utility which takes as arguments the label and the partition device

This filesystem checks automatically after 36 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

Mounting a Filesystem

Now that we have created a new filesystem on the Linux partition of our new disk drive, we need to mount it so that it is accessible. In order to do this we need to create a mount point. A mount point is simply a directory or folder into which the filesystem will be mounted. For the purposes of this example, we will create a /backup directory to match our filesystem label (although it is not necessary that these values match)

The file system may then be manually mounted using the mount command

Running the mount command with no arguments shows us all currently mounted filesystems (including our new filesystem):

Configuring RHEL 6 to Automatically Mount a File System

In order to configure the system so that the new disk is automatically mounted at the time boot we need an entry to be added to the /etc/fstab file.

The below is the sample configuration file which shows an fstab file configured to auto mount our /backup partition

After this configuration and demo, we can add new disks to the existing Linux machine without any issues and extends the space for storing the backups with another drive with easy steps. Hope this information helps!

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How to Add a New Disk to an Existing Linux Server

As system administrators, we would have got requirements wherein we need to configure raw hard disks to the existing servers as part of upgrading server capacity or sometimes disk replacement in case of disk failure.

In this article, I will take you through the steps by which we can add the new raw hard disk to an existing Linux server such as RHEL/CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu.

Important: Please note that the purpose of this article is to show only how to create a new partition and doesn’t include partition extension or any other switches.

I am using fdisk utility to do this configuration.

I have added a hard disk of 20GB capacity to be mounted as a /data partition.

fdisk is a command line utility to view and manage hard disks and partitions on Linux systems.

This will list the current partitions and configurations.

Find Linux Partition Details

After attaching the hard disk of 20GB capacity, the fdisk -l will give the below output.

Find New Partition Details

New disk added is shown as /dev/xvdc . If we are adding physical disk it will show as /dev/sda based of the disk type. Here I used a virtual disk.

To partition a particular hard disk, for example /dev/xvdc.

Commonly used fdisk commands.

• n – Create partition
• p – print partition table
• d – delete a partition
• q – exit without saving the changes
• w – write the changes and exit.

Here since we are creating a partition use n option.

Create New Partition in Linux

Create either primary/extended partitions. By default we can have upto 4 primary partitions.

Create Primary Partition

Give the partition number as desired. Recommended to go for the default value 1 .

Assign a Partition Number

Give the value of the first sector. If it is a new disk, always select default value. If you are creating a second partition on the same disk, we need to add 1 to the last sector of the previous partition.

Assign Sector to Partition

Give the value of the last sector or the partition size. Always recommended to give the size of the partition. Always prefix + to avoid value out of range error.

Assign Partition Size

Save the changes and exit.

Save Partition Changes

Now format the disk with mkfs command.

Format New Partition

Once formatting has been completed, now mount the partition as shown below.

Make an entry in /etc/fstab file for permanent mount at boot time.

Conclusion

Now you know how to partition a raw disk using fdisk command and mount the same.

We need to be extra cautious while working with the partitions especially when you are editing the configured disks. Please share your feedback and suggestions.

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TecMint is the fastest growing and most trusted community site for any kind of Linux Articles, Guides and Books on the web. Millions of people visit TecMint! to search or browse the thousands of published articles available FREELY to all.

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32 thoughts on “How to Add a New Disk to an Existing Linux Server”

1. 

I will suggest using UUID to mount devices. This gives some hardware independence, especially when working on a cloud where you can add and move devices as needed.

Use the uuid corresponding to the device and drive name of your convenience.

If I create a /home folder on the second drive, will it merge with the /home folder on the first drive? Can not be afraid of data loss of the first disk?

• 

It will not merge the old /home folder, instead, it will replace it.

What I would do is:

1. make a good backup of your server.
2. sudo su (or login as root).
3. mount the new drive (with the correct fstab entry: UUID=[drive uuid] /home_new ext4 defaults 0 0) to /home_new.
4. sync the old home folder to the new home folder: rsync -av /home/ /home_new/.
5. rename the old home folder: mv /home /home_old.
6. change the fstab entry to mount the new drive to /home ( UUID=[drive uuid] /home ext4 defaults 0 0).
7. Reboot your server. Now your new drive is mounted at /home with all of the original home contents, and your old home folder is accessible at /home_old.

Once you are comfortable, delete the old home folder.

If you run into problems, login as root, unmount /home, comment out or remove the fstab entry for the new drive, rename /home_old to /home and reboot.

I have a problem using Ubuntu. I have installed two hard drives one 128GB SSD and the other is 500 HD. On by default, I set 128 as a boot like using window and ubuntu at a time.

I have a problem there is when I open window in dual boot mode all partition work normal and good but when I open ubuntu my 500 Gb disk cannot show on ubuntu platform what I happen.

my all data exist on 500gb hard and I cannot see in ubuntu please guide some tricks

I need to add another hard disk in rhel7 system and wanted to create a ‘sdb’ partition. May I know how to create it?

• 

Follow the same procedure as explained in this article, for adding new disk to an existing RHEL 7 system..

• 

Thank you Ravi Saive

I need to add graphically not a command line mode…..
In graphical mode how to add the hard disk…

• 

I think you can do it by using any graphical disk management utility like Gparted or any other, that you need to find out..

You added 20 Gb Hard disk but in fdisk it is showing 21.5 GB. HOW??

Thanks Lakshmi! It’s very helpful!

Thanks Lakshmi. It worked well for my RHEL VM.

Thanks — I was able to follow this guide and get my drive installed with no headaches at all!

It might be useful to update with instructions to change the owner of the newly assigned drive. In Ubuntu 16.04, my freshly installed drive belonged to the user `root` and the group `root`. I just had to run `sudo chown : /dev/sda1` (in Ubuntu it seems both name and group are your login name) to get write access to the drive.

In your /etc/fstab consider using the UUID instead of the automatically assigned /dev/***.
UUID can be found using blkid.

Hi, before the command.

you should add: mkdir /data (if there is no /data)

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