Getting new hardware - can I just move the disk?

[Bo Berglund]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 12:58:00 +0200, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:

>> 5) Expand the data partition into the new free space to the left of it.
>
>Useful tool: /etc/mtab -- it's like /etc/fstab but it shows what's
>mounted live, now. You can copy lines from it to /etc/fstab to make
>them permanent.
>
>
>If you're not sure, then use Gparted. This operation is quick -- tens
>of seconds.

Yesterday I used the Ubuntu desktop 20.04 live DVD, which actually boots.

But it results in a terrible screen where it was even hard to start gparted and
it is covered with video junk all the time.
But I could work around it do do the job of yesterday.
Now I am trying to separate the videos from the rest on the system drive which
is half unallocated.
I want to make a *data* partition formatted as ext4 on that empty space.

So I need GParted, and this time I tried the "Live GParted" boot disk ISO.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/

And it is much smaller so it fits on a CD rather than DVD!
AND it does not have this problem with the screen, all is fine and dandy with
this tool! Much speedier than using a full Ubuntu desktop live DVD!

>> Step 4-5 seems to require again booting from the DVD to get to GParted.
>
>Yes.

OK step 5, so it felt like a simple job to use GParted to create the partition
and format as ext4, but the first thing that happened is that I am asked to
define the partition *type*, I can select among Primary, Logical and Extended
and I have no clue as to which...
I googled and got none the wiser...

On second view it turned out only Primary was selectable!

So I finished the job and also used the label as you suggested, very handy!
Now I will have to copy all of the videos to the new drive and then erase tham
from the source.
I will use rsync for this.

And shrink the system partition again to make room for another data partition of
some 120 GB or so.
Again the GParted Live CD! :-)

Question:
---------
The videos are inside the $HOME/www folder in various subdirectories below that.
I have a couple of websites running on this server and they typically have
symlinks like this:

/var/www/video.boberglund.com/public_html -> /home/username/www/videos

Will this work also when the videos folder is a mount point for the drive I will
move my videos to?

And can the mount descriptor be:
/dev/sdb2/videos
Or must it be /dev/sdb2 only?

I.e. Can I mount something a bit below the actual top of the drive?


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden