Add an Additional Hard Drive to SME Server

Here we utilize an additional disk drive to expand the storage of an existing SME Server. We demonstrate using '/home' as the mount point, however the choice of mount point is arbitrary.

We also use this technique in virtualized server installations. For example, if you create a VM using a single large virtual disk, you may easily get to a point where you can't snapshot it due to lack of free disk space. Using this technique, you can temporarily disconnect the second large 'data' disk, take a snapshot, then reconnect the virtual disk when done. Just one of the reasons why you should use (expensive) shared storage for your virtualization projects…

Shut down the SME Server and physically install the new disk while turned off, then boot it back up.

Partition the drive with one large partition. Use a GPT partition table if the drive is over 2TB.

fdisk -l

fdisk /dev/sdx                       # where x is your new drive

Use EXT4 for SME Server version 9.

Format the partition and mount it to a temporary location:

mkfs.ext3 -L Home /dev/sdx1          # where 'Home' is an arbitrary name

mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/

Now we copy all the existing data from the mount point (/home in this case):

rsync -avr /home/* /mnt/

Then we edit the /etc/fstab file so the new drive is mounted where we want it after a reboot:

vim /etc/fstab

Append this line to the end of the file and save it:

LABEL=Home              /home                   ext3    usrquota,grpquota        1 2

Now we dismount the new partition from the temporary mount point and remount it normally:

umount /mnt
mount -a
mount

You should see the new partition mounted as you wish.

Now we enable quotas on the new filesystem and we are done:

quotacheck -cug /home

quotaon -avug

Once we test the new configuration, including at least one reboot, we can take steps to recover the disk space occupied by the original /home data.

If this is a clean SME Server install and you realize there is little space to be gained, stop right now.

Carefully:

df -h                                 # just to check the current disk utilization
umount /home
mount                                 # just to make sure the new partition is no longer mounted
du -sh /home/*                        # just to see what we are about to delete
rm -rf /home/*
mount -a
df -h                                 # compare the results with the first command