Add a new 16TB HDD and transfer the OS to it

I have 2x 4 TB and I bought another one of 16TB. I mounted it with the following commands:

cd /mnt/
mkdir data2
blkid /dev/sdc 
fsck.ext4 /dev/sdc
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc
mount /dev/sdc /mnt/data2
lsblk

sda      8:0    0  3.7T  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0   32G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda2   8:2    0    1G  0 part /boot
├─sda3   8:3    0    2T  0 part /
├─sda4   8:4    0  1.7T  0 part /home
└─sda5   8:5    0    1M  0 part
sdb      8:16   0  3.7T  0 disk /mnt/data
sdc      8:32   0 14.6T  0 disk /mnt/data2

I would like to change the OS place from 4tb HDD to 16TB HDD because it is of crucial importance to me that /home has more space than 1.7TB as it is now. Now, is it possible to replace HDDs without reinstalling the OS, or is it possible to solve my problem in another way. My best hope is that all 16 TB will be mounted in the /home location. Thank you

Asked By: Uploadkom

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I would like to change the OS place from 4tb HDD to 16TB HDD because it is of crucial importance to me that /home has more space than 1.7TB as it is now.

This is a wrong premise. There is no reason for the OS to be on the 16TB HDD to have more space for /home. Moving the contents of /home to the 16TB and replacing /home by a symbolic link to the 16TB drive is enough to enjoy all the 16 TB for /home (including 25 GB that otherwise would be used by the system).

Otherwise, moving an existing installation to a new partition is in principle possible, but involves technical issues such as editing configuration files to make it work again. It will be far easier and quicker to just reinstall on the new drive.

  • Thus, you could leave the 4 TB disk with Ubuntu in place, and move the /home from that partition to the 16TB drive. Then create a symbolic link /home to that new location

  • If you want to remove that 4 TB drive where Ubuntu is installed, then I advice to just reinstall the OS on the 6 TB drive, then move the old /home over.

Answered By: vanadium