replacement disks and mounting points?

[Dutchie64]

Hi all,

Forgive me if this is a simple Linux question,, but I'm still dabbling with Linux Mint once in a while...

But... Say I have a external, mounted drive containing files that I can access with applications from within Linux Mint.
Now this drive has become too small. so I move the files over to a larger drive.

Will this new external drive be 'seen' differently in Linux, eg /dev/sdc2 instead of /dev/sdc1?
If so, if I keep my mounting name scheme the same, will Linux still be able to recognize the files on the new drive for any applications that used them before?

I've been browsing the web, but it's a jumble. As always when I dive more into Linux stuff like this.... 

cheers for any answers,

rob

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

I think that it keeps it's same numbering structure, but will treat it as the boot drive fine.

[Dutchie64]

So you're saying if I swap out one external drive for another, the drive /dev/id will stay the same in Linux?
If so, the mounts I set up for the various folders on the external disk would not have to change too.

I have no physical hardware to test this atm, so still wondering if this would work.

Edited September 2, 2025 by Dutchie64

[Case_f]

It might stay the same, or it might not. Depends on quite a few factors.
Still, even if it changes, it shouldn't matter. Your apps were almost certainly accessing the filesystem via mount points. So you'd simply adjust the given mount point to point to the corresponding new device/partition. Esentially the equivalent of assigning a different drive letter in Windows if that makes it more familiar to you.

This could of course get more tricky if the drive in question contained any system partitions and not just data, as that would have to be taken care of first for the system to start correctly, but it sounds like that's not the case.

[Dutchie64]

@Case_f Thanks for the reply as well.
And yes, the Windows example helps as well to understand what Linux is doing in the background.

I'll see if I can test this out in a VM with some extra drives and see where things could breaks, before I start using this on real hardware.
But the principle is clear now.

Thanks again!
 

[Matthew S.]

I would say make sure they use GPT over MBR and mount with the partition GUID instead, the /dev/sd## can change unexpectedly, though are usually tied to how the kernel enumerates over the devices at boot up.

as for the mount point (eg. /media/drivename /mnt/drivename) it's as simple as remounting, most times the auto-mount takes the name from the partition label.

[Dutchie64]

@Matthew S.
Thanks!

MBR doesn't have much use nowadays with the drives being so large now, especially harddisks. I don't think I had a drive set up with MBR for... well.. long time ago
But mounting with the GUID is something to look into as well, as sd## might change as you say.

Linux can be a bit more hands-on, but I always tinkered with Windows as well since 3.0 came out.
So breaking things has become a part of the story here

cheers all!

[Case_f]

Yep, I thought about mentioning mounting via UUID as well, as that is most definitely more "stable" against devices suddenly enumerating differently if/when a new device is connected (as the /dev/sd## might change as a result of that, but partition UUID will not) and is definitely the recommended way to mount partitions these days, but didn't want to complicate things too much and it seemed like with the drive being external and just swapped one for another, that's less of a concern in this case.

Still, certainly something to familiarize yourself with.

[Dutchie64]

I've already been tinkering on my VM with extra drives, and paths for application files etc.
So far it seems to work as expected. Even with transporting databases from Windows to Linux and changing file paths in those.
So far so good!

[remixedcat]

what drives and capacities?

[Dutchie64]

On 19/09/2025 at 23:00, remixedcat said:

what drives and capacities?

All this has been resolved. No need to confuse other  readers here.
Meow? Meow!