Move /home directory to another hard drive

[wiganbotch]

Hi there, Complete Linux newbie, so please be kind....My computer has three hard drives. I have performed a clean install of Ubuntu 10.10. I selected the default options and the install went smoothly. The only issue I encountered was a missing video mode but I was able to fix this using guidance on these forums. The filesystem has been installed on the first of my hard drives (sda). This has a single partition (sda1). These are my current settings.

80 Gb sda sda1 Ext 4 /
250Gb sdb sdb1 Ext4 /media/sdb1 *
165Gb sdc sdc1 Ext4 /media/sdc1*

* I created these partitions using the disk utility (Ext4 filesystem) and mounted them to the deault location (/media)
I would like to move the /home directory to the 250Gb drive.

Failed Attempts

I have tried to move the /home directory using the GUI from sda1 to sda2 but this did not work. The files moved across but the home location for the users did not actually change.

I also changed the location of the /home directory for all users in the advanced user accounts settings to /media/sdb1/home/name. But after a reboot the home folder still pointed to sda1

I have searched the forums and there are walkthroughs for moving the /home directory to another partition on the same drive, but I have been unable to find one specifically relating to moving the /home directory to another drive.

Help!

Any advice would be appreciated. Below are a some of questions that I hope someone can help me with:

* Where do I need to mount sdb1? The default location seems to be /media/sdb1. Can I mount sdb1 directly to the home directory (mnt /dev/sdb1 /home) or am i being stupid?

* What file system should I use for sdb1? The drive will be used mainly to store my MP3 collection. I want to share folders on the drive with another computer (XP) on my network

* Do I need to alter the fstab? I downloaded the pySDM program.....had a play about without doing enough research and now my system won't boot! Never mind I'll do another clean install and try again.

Thanks in advance.

Paul

[theDaveTheRave]

Paul,

if you are about to perform a clean install, you can simply use the 'advanced' options and tell the system to put the home directory on the 250GB HDD.

If on the other hand you want to perform a clean 'default' install feel free.

You will then need to manually edit the /etc/fstab file to tell it where to find the '/home ' directory, and where to mount it too. As you say mnt /dev/sdb1 /home should do the trick, but you'll require some extra option in fstab file.

check out this thread by bodhi.zazen (if you haven't already) it will give you the extra info you require.

David

[bioterror]

Copy your home to that new drive.
After that edit /etc/fstab and add following

/dev/sdb1 /home ext4 defaults 0 2

You could boot with LiveCD and "move" that home to new a drive also, that's what I would do. Or you could use recovery mode's root login.

But you cant be logged in with your normal user account which you're moving becouse the files are being used.

[bioterror]

PS. I would suggest to use UUID instead of /dev/sdXX.

[oldfred]

If you just want to have your music look like it is in your /home, all you have to do is link the folder into /home. You still need to create a mount point & mount it with fstab to have it permanently mounted. I do this for about 12 folders in my /data partition.
Similar thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1635717

Or if it is just one folder/directory you can just directly mount it with fstab into /home. I used to do this for my /shared NTFS partition.

Understanding fstab
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=283131
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FilePermissions

But it is a lot easier to use a graphical front end that both creates the mount point and edits fstab.
Try installing pysdm from the repos.
PySDM is a PyGTK Storage Device Manager
GUI Fstab Editing with PySDM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ighlight=pysdm
Storage Device Manager - Worry-Free Fstab Configuration
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=872197

If you want to move /home:
To move /home uses rsync
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Pa...ng/Home/Moving
Uses cp -ax
http://www.ivankuznetsov.com/2008/04...partition.html
cp without -a and copying as sudo root takes ownership
Uses cpio
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome