Adding a Disk and Partitioning It

If the df command shows that the file system is indeed nearing capacity, you can add a new disk on the fly and partition it to increase capacity.

  1. Add a new disk.

    For example, you can add a new disk to a virtual machine by using the VMware vSphere Client. After adding a new disk, check for the new disk by using fdisk. In the following example, the new disk is named /dev/sdb:

    fdisk -l
    Device        Start      End  Sectors Size Type
    /dev/sda1      2048 16771071 16769024   8G Linux filesystem
    /dev/sda2  16771072 16777182     6111   3M BIOS boot
    
    Disk /dev/sdb: 1 GiB, 1073741824 bytes, 2097152 sectors
    Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    
  2. Partition it with the parted wizard.

    The command to partition the disk on Photon OS is as follows:

    parted /dev/sdb
    

    Use the parted wizard to create it as follows:

    mklabel gpt
    mkpart ext3 1 1024
    
  3. Create a file system on the partition:

    mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb1
    
  4. Make a directory where you will mount the new file system:

    mkdir /newdata
    
  5. Open /etc/fstab and add the new file system with the options that you require:

    #system mnt-pt  type    options dump    fsck
    /dev/sda1       /       ext4    defaults,barrier,noatime,noacl,data=ord$
    /dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom      iso9660 ro,noauto       0       0
    /dev/sdb1       /newdata        ext3    defaults        0		0
    
  6. Mount it using the following command:

    mount /newdata
    

    Verify the results:

    df -h
    Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/root       7.8G  4.4G  3.1G  59% /
    devtmpfs        172M     0  172M   0% /dev
    tmpfs           173M     0  173M   0% /dev/shm
    tmpfs           173M  664K  172M   1% /run
    tmpfs           173M     0  173M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
    tmpfs           173M   36K  173M   1% /tmp
    tmpfs            35M     0   35M   0% /run/user/0
    /dev/sdb1       945M  1.3M  895M   1% /newdata