I have multiple drives in the server but it only stores in the / one. How can i use the remaining two drives to save it?

Seem like the answer is Yes… Since I’m a noob, will you like to elaborate on what you said? Some tutorials or actions that I should perform?

I’m asking this so I don’t mess anything just like I always do with other things :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, check my disk partition here - Unable to use entirety of hard drive for storage - #21 by mukeshwar

I hope you can read and use a search engine. With that you should be able to figure out if that is more or less what you want to do and in a second step you can look for tutorials adapted to your environment. Don’t expect that others to work for you and provide ready copy&paste solutions, we can just point you in a direction…

I already searched it and found out some things, that’s why I included the link above…However, I wanted to ensure I don’t mess things up…

Is this tutorial right - https://www.linuxtechi.com/extend-lvm-partitions/?

Looks like you are not using LVM, but pure RAID as for now. So this article will not really help, as you need to create LVMs first. Also home folder on a huge partition that is not used.

I would rather:

  1. do backup
  2. do backup
  3. do backup
  4. move home folder back to the root (also check mounts in your /etc/fstab that they are not pointing to the old places),
  5. then delete md3
  6. then delete sd4
  7. extend sd3 by reusing free space from sd4
  8. and extend md2 with capacity from md3/sd4.
  9. extend FS of root.
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seams like a classical task for a raidarray. with 3 drive probably level would be the wright choice.

Tflidd do you need to be a bully ?

Was I? We help people here on the forum, however it’s still the people’s task to run their own server. If you are new, you don’t know certain things, it is ok to ask for it. However if some just ask questions and expect ready copy&paste answers, or nearly identical questions asked shortly (which could have been found by looking and searching a bit), also some unknown keywords or commands that could be found out easily by using a search engine. So in such cases, you tend to get a bit aggressive.
So in this case, the user has read through some stuff and didn’t succeed, but in such cases, it’s much better to ask a more specific questions where you can’t follow or where you are unsure. It’s a bit like with a teacher, if you just say I didn’t do or understand what to do in my homework, or if you say, I started to do this and that and at that specific point, I was lost and didn’t know what to do.

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Thank you for replying :slight_smile: And sorry for the late reply.

I only understand the first three points i.e. to do a backup, but the rest are very new to me, and I don’t want to mess with my server, so is there any tutorial you want me to check. I know I can search on google but as I said, I’ll not take a risk as of now because if something happened, I can’t recover it.

So, please recommend me something. Some YouTube video, article, or something…

Wait, I understand… You want me to take the Home folder and shift it inside Root using mv command.(See the image) Screenshot 2021-03-13 at 12.35.13 PM

Also, there is no /etc/fstab file or folder, I check it but couldn’t find any.

And how can I delete md3 and sd4? Can you please give me commands… Also for point 7,8 & 9…

Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

Not really, root is /, and you point root directory under the root - /root.
Lets start from the beginning:

  1. Provide information about your environment: what kind of OC, version, etc.
  2. Output of
    lsblk
    df -hl
    cat /proc/mdstat
    mount
  3. How you manage it? Via SSH, some kind of UI?
  4. Do U have physical access to machine in case something goes wrong?

Then we will do point 4 only for start.

  1. Lsblk -
    Screenshot 2021-03-13 at 4.21.51 PM
  2. df -hl
    Screenshot 2021-03-13 at 4.22.20 PM
  3. cat /proc/mdstat
    Screenshot 2021-03-13 at 4.23.03 PM
  4. mount

    I use this server with ssh from my Terminal, and no I don’t have physical access to the machine. P.S. - This is a dedicated server…

And what is the system? CentOS, Ubuntu, something else?


On a first and last screenshots you see, that /dev/md3 is mounted to the root as home. So the aim of point 4 is to move this to the partition /dev/md2. Based on any tutorial e.g. this one, or this one you have to:

  1. Make new folder to mount /dev/md3 to it
sudo mkdir /mnt/home_orig
  1. Then mount /dev/md3 there.
sudo mount /dev/md3 /mnt/home_orig
#With next command check that content is your regular home directory before to proceed next.
ls -la /mnt/home_orig
  1. Unmount home directory
sudo unmount /home
  1. make new home directory
sudo mkdir /home
  1. Copy content from old home to the new home
sudo rsync -av /mnt/home_orig/* /home/
#OR
sudo cp -aR /mnt/home_orig/* /home/
# Check that everything being copied
sudo diff -r /home /mnt/home_orig -x ".gvfs/*"
  1. check that home not mounted
mount | grep md3
# Should not show "/home"
  1. Here depends on your system you have to comment (remove we can make later) line with /dev/md3 /home to prevent it from the mount on boot, e.g. from /etc/fstab, but you do not have it…

Thats it for point 4. In case of trouble if you do not apply point 7, after reboot you should have your old home folder back. But you do not need to reboot, simply mount it back in case of troubles sudo mount /dev/md3 /home

I’m on Ubuntu… I see there are a couple of commands to perform. Should I first back everything up or is it safe?

For ubuntu there is a good tutorial here, the aim is the same. St rage that you have not fstab…

Till you delete something it is pretty safe to perform.

I don’t want to delete any file or thing, I just want to have all the 8TB in /. So, I don’t need backup, right? And should I just follow that tutorial? Like, point to point?

If yes, do I need to perform the previous steps you gave me earlier?

What does it mean? Should I not use Fstab or what? I think your commands are much better for me to follow as it’s much more direct and to the point. So, should I follow your above commands and you give some other commands for it to fully work!

Please!! P.S. - Sorry I am asking so many questions, but this is one shot so I have to…

You have to follow this global plan:

Only Point 4 do not need a backup because you are not deleting anyhing, but you have to find where your fstab is, or a way how mounts are managed on your system. Otherwise after reboot you will be back to you initial setup with /home under /dev/md3.

Thats really strange I have also Ubuntu Desktop and Server edition and have fstab, could you check sudo cat /etc/fstab?

From point 5 we will start moving partition, so you better have to have backup in place for this action.

sudo cat /etc/fstab - This worked.
Screenshot 2021-03-14 at 1.27.10 AM

I’ll just back up the whole server, just in case something happened. Also, I have a question - I’m running a Python script in /root and I want it to run for a couple of weeks, will these steps can cause it to step?

P.S. - I can’t stop it…

Ok, let’s leave everything. Can you please help me out with this? Like, give me the commands to do the thing! Please!!