Media Systems: Incorporating the TV and the HiFi - Smart Home Automation with Linux and Raspberry Pi - page 96

Preparing a Machine
As each machine is Linux-based, they will already have their own filesystems in place (including commercial devices
that are based around the filesystems), so your only task here is to provide a place for your files.
For internal hard drives, always create a separate ext3 partition for your media. A separate partition is used so that
it can be mounted separately (which makes for easier recovery in case of a crash or power outage), and ext3 provides a
journaling filesystem. Also, because the media partition is likely to be the first one filled, your Linux machine will not
run into problems if it finds that there's no more disk space left. Provide a mount point by adding a file to /etc/fstab :

/dev/sda7 /mnt/mediadisk auto user,noauto 0 0

And create hard links from somewhere more convenient; I use a root folder on the server called /media :

ln /mnt/mediadisk/media/tv /media/tv

Note that I have not stored files in the root of the sda7 partition but, instead, inside the media/tv folder. This
conventional directory structure will benefit me later, should the disk's purpose be extended to include extra
functionality such as backups.
External USB hard drives work in the same way but with a different line in /etc/fstab :

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbdisk0 auto user,noauto 0 0

In both cases, the disks are not mounted automatically. This is a personal preference, because it requires— and
requires me— to check the disks after a major power failure or crash, a step that others might ignore or skip, to the
detriment of the filesystem.
The other change for external USB devices is that as the directories are on different physical disks, you are
required to use a symlink instead:

ln -s /mnt/usbdisk0/media/tv /media/tv

One addition for these drives is to note which physical hard disk is used to store the content. This is for when a
drive breaks, or is about to, and you need to remove the correct one. It is also helpful in those cases in which two USB
drives have been mounted in the reverse order.
To do this, I simply change to the root directory of the drive in question and type the following:

touch THIS_IS_THE_SILVER_LACIE_500G_DRIVE
touch THIS_SHOULD_BE_MOUNTED_UNDER_SDB1

This demonstrates another reason for not polluting the root. If you've followed the tip about buying hard drives
from different manufacturers, these names are easy to pick.

Preparing a Filesystem
Once the machines are ready, the media filesystem must be considered; you must think of it in global terms across
every server and across the whole house. There are three elements to the storage chain to consider:

u The machine name

u The machine's physical location

u
Taking these in order, the machine name will often be provided by the manufacturer, such as cineDISK . If you
have the ability, rename it to cineDISK1 , and add a sticky label to the back of the device indicating this. Always add an

The shared folder names for the media stored on that machine