Adding an HDD on Debian and Formatting It with xfs

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In Linux environments I often have occasion to add an HDD after the fact, so I am writing it down again.
(About ten years ago I posted a similar article (adding an HDD with fdisk from the command line (in Japanese)))

Environment

The Linux used is Debian 12
The format is xfs
The HDD to be added is 4TB

I assume Linux (Debian) is already running and the HDD to be added is already installed

Preparation

Since I am formatting with xfs this time, I install the programs I need

# apt install parted xfsprogs

Creating the partition

Check in advance which device you are going to partition and format
fdisk -l, or dmesg|grep sd, or lsblk
(this time it is /dev/sdb)

# parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) p
Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MG04ACA4 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 4001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:
(parted) mkpart primary
Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label
(parted) mklabel gpt
(parted) p
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MG04ACA4 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 4001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number  Start  End  Size  File system  Name  Flags

(parted) mkpart primary
File system type?  [ext2]? xfs
Start? 1mb
End? -1
(parted) p
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MG04ACA4 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 4001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
 1      1049kB  4001GB  4001GB  xfs          primary

(parted) quit
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

Formatting with xfs

# mkfs -t xfs /dev/sdb1
meta-data=/dev/sdb1              isize=512    agcount=4, agsize=244188544 blks
         =                       sectsz=512   attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=1        finobt=1, sparse=1, rmapbt=0
         =                       reflink=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=976754176, imaxpct=5
         =                       sunit=0      swidth=0 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0, ftype=1
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=476930, version=2
         =                       sectsz=512   sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0

Mounting the added device

So that the order in which the disks are recognised does not change on reboot, I write the entry in fstab by UUID

How to check the UUID

(parts are masked to prevent misuse)

$ sudo /usr/sbin/blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="7FD6-ACD4" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="xxxxxf04-29f1-4203-8dc4-2688e9896d3c"
/dev/sda2: UUID="xxxxx06a-cc81-47df-a2a8-3a1ac70fb2a3" TYPE="xfs" PARTUUID="xxxxx9a0-3dd6-4180-b8da-2c6660f5147e"
/dev/sda3: UUID="xxxxxc75-47a8-4f2c-bd73-754b2dc1fa64" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="xxxxx685-05d9-4f8b-8bed-feb492c76358"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="xxxxx285-8b1f-49aa-bdc4-ac3a636e48b3" TYPE="xfs" PARTLABEL="primary" PARTUUID="xxxxxf44-5529-45b0-ba04-3a3e5e342b03"

Writing it into fstab

This time I will mount /dev/sdb1 at /mnt/test.

$ mkdir /mnt/test

Add the following single line to fstab.

# vim /etc/fstab
UUID=xxxxx285-8b1f-49aa-bdc4-ac3a636e48b3 /mnt/test     xfs     defaults 0       0

Check

    # mount -a
    # df
    ...
    /dev/sdb1       3905108984  8231592 3896877392    1% /mnt/test

If it is not mounted the way you intended, review the entry in fstab.
You must not reboot until you have confirmed it.

Linux

debian