How to Format and Mount a New 1TB HDD

🖥 How to Format and Mount a New 1TB HDD to `/var/www/recordings` on Linux

If you’ve added a new HDD to your Linux server and want to use it as a dedicated storage location — for example, to store Asterisk or web server recordings — you’ll need to partition, format, mount, and configure it to auto-mount at boot.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the process of wiping the drive (careful — data will be lost!), creating a single ext4 partition, and mounting it permanently.

Step 1: Identify Your New Disk

Run:


lsblk

Example output:


NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0    50M  0 part
├─sda2   8:2    0 540.8G  0 part
└─sda3   8:3    0 390.6G  0 part

In our case, /dev/sda is the new 1TB disk.

⚠ Warning: Double-check you’ve picked the right disk! Formatting the wrong one will destroy data.

Step 2: Unmount Any Mounted Partitions


sudo umount /dev/sda* 2>/dev/null

Step 3: Wipe Old Partitions and Create One Big Partition

Use fdisk:


sudo fdisk /dev/sda

Inside fdisk:


o   # Create a new empty DOS partition table
n   # New partition
p   # Primary
1   # Partition number
<Enter>  # Accept default start
<Enter>  # Accept default end (use full disk)
w   # Write changes

Step 4: Format as ext4


sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

Step 5: Create Mount Point


sudo mkdir -p /var/www/recordings

Step 6: Mount the Partition


sudo mount /dev/sda1 /var/www/recordings

Step 7: Set Permissions for Your Web Server

Depending on your distro:


# AlmaLinux / CentOS / RHEL
sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/recordings

# openSUSE
sudo chown -R wwwrun:www /var/www/recordings

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/recordings

Step 8: Make It Permanent in `/etc/fstab`

Find the UUID:


sudo blkid /dev/sda1

Example:


/dev/sda1: UUID="abcd-1234-efgh-5678" TYPE="ext4"

Edit fstab:


sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add:


UUID=abcd-1234-efgh-5678 /var/www/recordings ext4 defaults 0 0

Save and test:


sudo mount -a

MANISH K

Search This Blog