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| Spacing between columns is arbitrary. The `<dir>` column is the mount point, while the `<type>` column indicates file system type. | Spacing between columns is arbitrary. The `<device>` column should identify the device either by device file (i.e. `/dev/sdXN`) or by UUID (preferred). You can get the UUID of a device with `blkid`. The `<dir>` column is the mount point. The `<type>` column indicates file system type. You can get the file system type of a device with `blkid`. |
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| * `ro` - read-only |
File System
File systems are standards for organizing, maintaining, and accessing data on a disk drive. This will not be a crosswalk of file systems.
You may need to take a step back and look at creating a partition table first.
Mounting File Systems
fstab
On a Linux system, /etc/fstab informs on what volumes should be mounted and with what options. This configuration file is structured as:
# <device> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <fsck> UUID=f9fe0b69-a280-415d-a03a-a32752370dee none swap defaults 0 0
Spacing between columns is arbitrary.
The <device> column should identify the device either by device file (i.e. /dev/sdXN) or by UUID (preferred). You can get the UUID of a device with blkid.
The <dir> column is the mount point.
The <type> column indicates file system type. You can get the file system type of a device with blkid.
The <options> column can contain any of:
defaults
noatime - do not write access times
noauto - do not wait on fsck
nofail - do not indicate errors if unavailable
noatime - do not sync update times
nodev - disallow special device files
nosuid - disallow operation of SUID bit
ro - read-only
The <dump> column is used by the dump utility--if you don't need that utility (and most people don't), set it to 0.
The <fsck> column is used by the fsck utility, and enables boot-time filesystem checks.
0 disables checks.
1 runs corrections based on checks. This is important for the root device.
2 forces reboot on error.
Creating File systems
Henceforward you will see reference to sdXN, where you should understand that X needs to be replaced with the relevant letter and N with the relevant number. You should also understand how to find that relevant letter and number combination, and the risks of finding the incorrect letter or number.
ext2
Don't.
ext3
Seriously. Don't.
ext4
If you are creating ext4 file systems, you probably are using Linux. Therefore, let's assume you have the Linux toolset available.
Running as superuser:
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdXN
Consider disabling access time on secondary and storage drives. Setting this metadata isn't always helpful and carries a speed cost.
# <device> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <fsck> /dev/sdXN /var ext4 defaults,noatime 0 0
FAT32
The main advantage to FAT32 is it near-universal mount-ability. (Expect issues on a vanilla macOS environment!) The cost of getting that is steep though. Expect much slower performance, greater instability, and incompatibility with standard Linux file metadata.
On Linux, run as superuser:
mkfs.vfat /dev/sdXN
MS-DOS
On Linux you can run as superuser:
mkdosfs /dev/sdXN
But you should also know that mkdosfs is a symlink to mkfs.vfat.