How to Mount USB Drives in Linux?

Hey there, Linux user! Need to access files on your USB drive but not sure how to mount it? Don’t worry – I’ve got you covered with this step-by-step guide. We’ll walk through the whole process of mounting USB drives in Linux, from connecting the device to safely removing it when you’re done. Let’s dive in!

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have:

• A Linux system with a terminal
• Sudo or root access
• A USB drive to mount

You’ll also need to be comfortable using basic Linux commands. Don’t worry if you’re not an expert – I’ll explain each step along the way.

Step-By-Step Method to Mount USB Drives in Linux

Identifying Your USB Drive

First things first – we need to figure out which device name Linux has assigned to your USB drive. Plug in your USB drive, then open up a terminal and run this command:

lsblk

This will list all the block devices connected to your system. Look for an entry that matches the size of your USB drive. It’ll probably be named something like sdb or sdc.

For example, you might see output like this:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 223.6G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   512M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0    16G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda3   8:3    0 207.1G  0 part /
sdb      8:16   1  14.9G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   1  14.9G  0 part

In this case, sdb is our 14.9GB USB drive.

Creating a Mount Point

Now that we’ve identified our USB drive, we need to create a directory to mount it to. This is called a mount point. Let’s create one in the /mnt directory:

sudo mkdir /mnt/usb

Mounting the USB Drive

With our mount point created, we can now mount the USB drive. We’ll use the mount command for this:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

Replace sdb1 with the correct device name for your USB drive if it’s different.

If everything went well, you shouldn’t see any output. No news is good news in Linux! Your USB drive is now mounted and accessible at /mnt/usb.

Accessing Your Files

You can now access the files on your USB drive by navigating to the mount point:

cd /mnt/usb
ls

This will show you the contents of your USB drive. Feel free to read, write, or modify files as needed.

Unmounting the USB Drive

When you’re done using your USB drive, it’s important to unmount it properly before physically unplugging it. This ensures all data is written to the drive and prevents potential data loss. Here’s how to unmount:

sudo umount /mnt/usb

Again, if you don’t see any output, that means it worked successfully.

Automating the Mounting Process

Tired of manually mounting your USB drive every time? Let’s set up automatic mounting using fstab. This is great for drives you use frequently.

First, we need to get the UUID of your USB drive:

sudo blkid

Look for the entry corresponding to your USB drive and copy the UUID. Now, let’s edit the fstab file:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

UUID=your-uuid-here /mnt/usb auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0