fstab - hdd/ssd auto mounting

Want to mount a USB drive on boot? here is how.

Generic helpers

Debug connected USB controllers with

lsusb

Get hard drive id with

blkid

Edit auto mount information in

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Create a backup of your fstab with

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup

Auto drive mount ext4

Into /etc/fstab

UUID=d1724867-ce93-4656-90f3-1bdda6722371 /media/hdd ext4 defaults,nobootwait 0 0

DO NOT HAVE SPACES BETWEEN THE COMMAS!

❌ defaults, nobootwait -> ✅ defaults,nobootwait

Auto drive mounting NTFS partition

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g
sudo mkdir /mnt/disk15
sudo chmod 770 /mnt/disk15

# Test mounting
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g -o umask=777 /dev/sda1 /mnt/disk15

### Into /etc/fstab:

# ntfs 777 - not the best.
UUID=[BLK_ID] /mnt/disk15 ntfs-3g nobootwait,umask=777 0 0

# ntfs with proper masking
UUID=770bcbdc-01 /mnt/usbhdd ntfs-3g nobootwait,auto,exec,rw,user,dmask=002,fmask=113,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

Note: nobootwait is there to prevent halting if mounting failed.

Drive idle spin-down

For mechanical disks rarely used e.g. for backup purposes, you may want to consider spinning them down while you are not using them. You can achieve this using hdparm - default settings should work just fine.

sudo apt-get install hdparm

Fine tuning:

hdparm -S 120 /dev/sda

Get current status: hdparm -C /dev/sdX

How to mount manually

### HDD list
lsblk 

### userId (uid=1000)
id

### Run to target
sudo mount -o rw,exec,uid=1000,user  /dev/nvme0n1p3 /media/symunona/t4

Test your mount with

sudo mount -a

This re-mounts everything in fstab!

No uuid is needed, it's ok to just have the resource path:

# <file system>  <mount point>  <type>  <options>  <dump>  <pass>

/dev/nvme0n1p3 /media/user/data r rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,iocharset=utf8,errors=remount-ro,uhelper=udisks2 0 0
linux raspberry pi hard drive fstab