[SOLVED] Helping movin HOME to seperate Partition

[MoonRise]

OK, I hope the above makes sense.

On this pseudo-new laptop I was as stated before finally able to get it working again, albeit with some weirdness in the BIOS. I was able to get a mSATA card since the original HD had issues as well. It was only a 256 GB that I spit across Windows 10 and MAUI. Maui is my primary but there are software I use that absolutely have to have Windows 10.

So, after a lot of work, this system seems stable. I decided to buy a nice hybrid hard drive for better data storage and leave the mSATA for OS only.

After getting Windows happy with this new drive, which took forever due to MS stupidity, I'm not at the point to get my main OS situated. So, on the original install I had no choice but have HOME on the same root partition. I usually separate root and HOME but couldn't.

Finally to the topic: How can I move HOME to the new drive partition without reinstalling and that it mounts as such?

EDIT: Well, I guess I should have looked first but at least maybe this will help others having this link here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Pa...ng/Home/Moving

[vinnywright]

that is a good guide ,,,,,,,,,,,I quit doing separate /home partitions becuse I have 5 OS's on the box and creating 5 /home partitions fore each seemed to be a bit much and a tad messy .

+ this would spread "MY" data all over the place , so instead I have my /home/vinny/<data directories> system linked in the storage drive so no mater what OS I am using if I download something or take a screenshot or save a document it is in a place that all OS's have .

like so

storage drive is mounted ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~$ findmnt
TARGET                                SOURCE     FSTYPE     OPTIONS
/                                     /dev/sda6  ext4       rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered
├─/sys                                sysfs      sysfs      rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
│ ├─/sys/kernel/security              securityfs securityfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
│ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup                    tmpfs      tmpfs      ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/systemd          cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-a
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/freezer          cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/memory           cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct      cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event       cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset           cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb          cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio            cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio
│ │ ├─/sys/fs/cgroup/devices          cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices
│ │ └─/sys/fs/cgroup/pids             cgroup     cgroup     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids
│ ├─/sys/fs/pstore                    pstore     pstore     rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
│ ├─/sys/kernel/debug                 debugfs    debugfs    rw,relatime
│ └─/sys/fs/fuse/connections          fusectl    fusectl    rw,relatime
├─/proc                               proc       proc       rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
│ └─/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc          systemd-1  autofs     rw,relatime,fd=27,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct
├─/dev                                udev       devtmpfs   rw,nosuid,relatime,size=8170256k,nr_inodes=2042564,mode=755
│ ├─/dev/pts                          devpts     devpts     rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000
│ ├─/dev/shm                          tmpfs      tmpfs      rw,nosuid,nodev
│ ├─/dev/mqueue                       mqueue     mqueue     rw,relatime
│ └─/dev/hugepages                    hugetlbfs  hugetlbfs  rw,relatime
├─/run                                tmpfs      tmpfs      rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=1638204k,mode=755
│ ├─/run/lock                         tmpfs      tmpfs      rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k
│ └─/run/user/1000                    tmpfs      tmpfs      rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=1638204k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000
└─[COLOR=#ff0000]/mnt/btrfs                          /dev/sdb1  btrfs      rw,relatime,compress=lzo,space_cache,subvolid=5,subvol=/[/COLOR]

and has

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:/mnt/btrfs$ ls
@  @data  @home  kubuntu  @snap

the @'s are a netrunner install

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:/mnt/btrfs/kubuntu$ ls
bin  Calibre Library  Documents  Downloads  dwhelper  Music  MyMachines  Pictures  steam  Videos

all of course the usual /home/you/ data directorys

now in whatever OS im in I have the /home/me data directorys system linked to the ones in /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~$ ls -la
lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny      34 Mar 19  2016 Calibre Library -> /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu/Calibre Library

lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny      28 Mar 19  2016 Documents -> /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu/Documents
lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny      28 Mar 19  2016 Downloads -> /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu/Downloads

lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny      27 Mar 19  2016 dwhelper -> /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu/dwhelper

lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny      24 Mar 19  2016 Music -> /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu/Music

lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny      27 Mar 19  2016 Pictures -> /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu/Pictures

lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny      25 Mar 19  2016 Videos -> /mnt/btrfs/kubuntu/Videos

removed all irrelevant entries ,,,,,,,,,,,,,so in this way I keep the amount of partitions to minimum and the amount of space used in / (home is in / ) down as all my data is somewhere else

VINNY

[MoonRise]

I don't have that many and I actually store long term items on the Desktop which is sort of like my NAS now so I really still just do the separate partition thing.

[oshunluvr]

My opinion: the simplest way by far is to boot to a live USB and do it. Steps would be:

1. Boot to Live USB and log in.
2. Mount both the / and new /home partitions somewhere - I'll use /media/root and /media/new_home for example.
2. Rename /media/root/home to /media/root/old_home.
3. Copy (preserving all attributes) all of /media/root/old_home to /media/new_home.
4. Edit /media/root/etc/fstab to mount the /media/new_home partition as /home.
5. Reboot. Done.

Now you have the old /home as /old_home and the new /home in place. Delete /old_home at your leisure.

[oshunluvr]

Or better yet, use btrfs and forget partitioning altogether...

[MoonRise]

I thought of BTRFS, but its only a data drive so wasn't sure the thing to do. That link I posted worked though so I'm good for now. I hope. After reading another thread here about DOA devices and hard drive lives varying and this being a hybrid...

[oshunluvr]

I stopped having separate /home partitions even before I started using btrfs. Since I often multi-boot, I preferred to keep my actual data in a separate location rather than sticking it in /home and having to locate and mount it. That way each install has "clean" settings and so forth in /home and is backed up with the install while my personal data stays segregated.

I have experimented with several different ways to manage the mounting of the various folders - none are perfect yet. Currently, I keep my data in a separate mounted subvolume and symlink the various folders. For a while I used binds mounts. I even tried bind mounts launched from a script when I logged on so that when I was not logged on, my files were not accessible without mounting first. It was more of an experiment as rarely does anyone except me access my desktop PC.

[oshunluvr]

I thought of BTRFS, but its only a data drive so wasn't sure the thing to do. That link I posted worked though so I'm good for now. I hope. After reading another thread here about DOA devices and hard drive lives varying and this being a hybrid...

The biggest benefit IMO to using btrfs in this instance would be send/receive - a way to backup without having to install, configure, and manage yet another program. Other benefits would be adding additional devices/partitions to your data space to expand without moving data or even unmounting.

Once I was taking a 1TB drive out and replacing it with a 2TB drive. I added the 2TB drive as JBOD to the btrfs filesystem on the 1TB drive, then removed the 1TB drive (logical add and remove - not physical). The system automagically moved all the data from the 1TB drive to the 2TB drive even though I was still using it. Took some time to complete, but who cared? I didn't have to stop working...

[vinnywright]

Currently, I keep my data in a separate mounted subvolume and symlink the various folders.

,,,,,,,,,and is just what I was describing in post #2

so at least 2 of us do it this way.

VINNY

[MoonRise]

I guess it all comes down to how you use the system.