I have Boot & / installed on an SDD (1TB), & I have /media/Data mounted on an HDD (4TB). I would like to have the usual directories of /Home, ie. Documents. Downloads, Music etc., available in the file manager, listed from the HDD. At the moment I can access the HDD, which shows up in "Files" as 4TB volume, quite easily, but it is causing problems opening files in apps (eg. Audacity) because they always look for files in /Home/. I have to "drill down" to access the files in /media//Data .How can I get Ubuntu to look by default to the /media//Data files rather than /Home? I have listed the /media/Data in Fstab but, although it is mounted, I still need several steps to access it.
Is there anything I can do to make my HDD more easily accessed in “Files” & when I try & load files in Apps.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Relevant System Information:
PC Intel® Core™ i5-4690 × 4, 8GB RAM, 64-bit, Linux 6.11.0-19-generic. SDD 1TB, HDD 4TB.
Screenshots or Error Messages:
What I’ve Tried:
I've obviously tried checking directories & mount points, & made sure that the HDD & mount point (/media//Data is listed in Fstab, but I still have the same problem.
I just create an icon on the desktop for any particular directory I access frequently. One mouse click takes me there. Using KDE Kubuntu. Gnome does it too.
Thanks for the reply. I already have the icon, & can easily see the files in the HDD, but it is more of a problem if I am opening files in the menu of an App. Some seem to be very resistant to any file not accessible in /Home. I want my /Home to be pointing towards the HDD, not the SDD.
Ahh, I have my /home directory in a separate large partition, with all my most used apps and info there, as well as symlinks to my data drive for most used information.
I have tried symlinks, but all they seem to do is to make a file saved in /Home to be duplicated in /media//Data which is NOT what I want. Are you suggesting that my installation was wrong, in that I did not separately mount /Home in a partition on its own? If so I wonder whether I can change this without wrecking the system.
I use symlinks, but mount at /mnt/data. Others have suggested using a mount at root like /data. If you let or create a mount in /media then it is shown in file browser.
I prefer to keep /home on SSD as user configuration files are accessed more frequently. Most are hidden.
Do not use snaps, so not sure how whell snaps work with links.
I do not have a lot of data, so when I got a larger SSD, I moved my data to SSD. So HDD is backup and test installs.
Ubuntu Forums, the forerunner of this site. There is an excellent how-to for moving your home folder. If you can it would be less hassle just to re-install from scratch and make sure your /home is on it’s own largish partition.
Having delved into this, a re-installation is probably the easiest solution. With a 1TB SDD & a 4TB HDD, would I be correct to:
Booting with a live USB, with the 24.04 Ubuntu installer:
Install boot partition (1GB) on SDD
Install root partition on SDD (remainder of SDD)
Install Home partition on HDD as /media/Home (use all the space)
Check all are included in Fstab. (I assume the installer should do this)
Would this result in “Files” pointing to the /Home directory as being on the HDD?
UEFI installs have ESP - efi system partition which is FAT32 and for larger drives 500 or 600MB is suggested although a default install uses very little. More for future uses or if you change to SystemD boot or need a bit of FAT32 space for UEFI update.
The ESP is mounted when booting at /boot/efi, but is not the boot partition. A boot partition is not required with normal installs, but is often used with servers & LVM. If you are using full drive encryptioin then LVM is also required.
The default /home is mounted at /home. It is either in / or as separate partition mounted at /home in fstab. It will not be a /media mount as those are the ones created by browser or by udisk2.
How much data will you have in /home? I prefer to keep /home inside /, but have data in a separate data partition. My Kubuntu / with no snaps but including /home (. files & Firefox) is about 12GB. Have seen users with 20GB in snaps. And if installing server apps like data base or web then you need more spave in /, but not typically your entire 1TB drive. Some suggest 50 to 60GB. But how you partition based on each individual’s requirements.
Now I can offer tips from my own workflow where I juggle dual boot (Ubuntu 22.04 and Windows 10) and I manage multiple SSD’s and partitions in external caddies.
Look for “one stop” front tools with rich asset search features.
One tool is Krusader dual panel file manager. The caveat is it requires KDE baggage to be installed. But that apart Krusader as front end asset manager can dive into various assets. Also leverage UserActions.
A lighter weight dual panel tool in Double Commander. These are similar to Total Commander in Windows. Also explore Thunar.
The next tool I recommend is Recoll. You can choose to index your entire desktop or narrow in on your media archives.
In short I recommend front end tools so you can leverage history and bookmarks and workflow sessions instead of navigating the file system every time.
Read about Recoll in their community and the old Ubuntu Forum (UF).
As others have said, when installing choose “other” or it can also be called “something else” or “manual partitioning” in the partitioning bit of the install.
Your intent to have a 1gb efi partition is good, it will allow for future changes.
This is how I would partition for your system:
1gb EFI Make sure the boot flag is set to efi/boot formatted FAT32
the rest of that drive for / Formatted EXT4
partition the HDD between /home and /data with whatever ratio suits you, giving at least 50gb for /home, preferably more. Formatted EXT4.
The choice of format form for your /mnt/data partition is dependent on whether you need to share the information between systems. Linux plays quite nicely with NTFS these days and I use that for my external drives as well as my data drive. EXFAT is a bastardised horrible hodge-podge and has resulted in loss of data for me on multiple occasions.
EXT4 is a pain to share with Windows systems so that is why I use NTFS.
The choice is yours and that is the real power and beauty of the Linux world.
I would also put in a plug here for QT-fsarchiver my favourite backup solution. When the system is up and running after the first boot, make a backup, and again when you make major changes.