[ubuntu-uk] External hard disks and backup strategies

Robert McWilliam rmcw at allmail.net
Sat Sep 22 19:37:16 BST 2007


On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:36:43 +0100
David M <lists2007 at trancepod.34sp.com> wrote:
> Thanks, that's very useful to know..
> ..although I'm going to have to find out what the current method of 
> hacking /etc/fstab is these days since newfangled stuff introduced
> with edgy turned it to gibberish.. (Bah: it worked fine as a format
> for 30 years previously, why change it..?) :-(

Current method of hacking fstab is often not to. gnome-volume-manager
(I think) mounts removable drives in /media/<partition label> without
putting anything in fstab. You can do the same thing manually with
pmount. 

The format changes to fstab are to use the UID of partitions to
identify them rather than the device name as the device name can change
depending on which device comes up first during boot, or the order they
get plugged in for removable devices. If you want to you can add a line
there to define where your external drive should be mounted using the
UID of the partition on it. 

> There's
> also the issue of unmounting the disk safely: can Ubuntu be
> configured to unmount the disk automatically when you shut down?

The shutdown procedure unmounts everything.

> Then there's the slightly too-funky-looking Seagate FreeAgent drives
> which seemingly power themselves down after a period of non-use. While
> nifty, the thing that worries me here is whether it does so in such a
> way that doesn't cause mount problems, and whether Ubuntu is able to
> kick it back into life again the next time it is needed?

I've got a Western Digital Elements drive that is of the
no-power-switch, automatic-shutoff-if-idle variety and it works fine.
The idle shutoff leaves enough of the electronics running to notice if
there is any activity and fire the rest (and the actual drive) back up. 
It's also got a nice solid metal case.

________________________________________________________
Robert McWilliam     rmcw at allmail.net    www.ormiret.com

Calculating in binary code is as easy as 01,10,11.



More information about the ubuntu-uk mailing list