Demo Basic Storage

This hands-on demo shows how to work with disks, partitions, and filesystems on Linux. You’ll learn how to:

Identify available block devices
Create a GPT partition table and partitions using parted
Format partitions with XFS, ext4, and VFAT (FAT32)
Mount partitions and verify mounts
Make mounts persistent by editing /etc/fstab

Prerequisites: root (or sudo) access and an unused block device (in this demo /dev/sdb).

1 — List block devices

Start by listing block devices to identify the device you’ll work on:

root@control:~# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           8:0    0   20G  0 disk
├─sda1        8:1    0    1M  0 part
├─sda2        8:2    0    1G  0 part /boot
└─sda3        8:3    0   19G  0 part
  ├─rhel-root 253:0  0   17G  0 lvm /
  └─rhel-swap 253:1  0    2G  0 lvm [SWAP]
sdb           8:16   0  5.1G  0 disk
sr0          11:0    1 1024M  0 rom

Before proceeding, double-check the target device (this demo uses /dev/sdb). Partitioning the wrong disk can cause irreversible data loss.

2 — Create partitions with parted

Create a GPT label and three partitions on the target device. The example below creates:

Partition 1: XFS (start 2048s to 500MiB)
Partition 2: ext4 (501MiB to 1000MiB)
Partition 3: FAT32/VFAT (1001MiB to 1500MiB)

Run parted interactively:

root@control:~# parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 3.6
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) mklabel gpt
(parted) mkpart primary xfs 2048s 500MiB
(parted) name 1 xfspartition
(parted) mkpart primary ext4 501MiB 1000MiB
(parted) name 2 ext4partition
(parted) mkpart primary fat32 1001MiB 1500MiB
(parted) name 3 vfatpartition
(parted) print
Model: (unknown) (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 5369MB
Number  Start    End      Size     File system  Name
 1      2048s    500MiB   499MiB   xfs          xfspartition
 2      501MiB   1000MiB  499MiB   ext4         ext4partition
 3      1001MiB  1500MiB  499MiB   fat32        vfatpartition
(parted) quit

After quitting parted, verify the new partition nodes:

root@control:~# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           8:0    0   20G  0 disk
├─sda1        8:1    0    1M  0 part
├─sda2        8:2    0    1G  0 part /boot
└─sda3        8:3    0   19G  0 part
  ├─rhel-root 253:0  0   17G  0 lvm /
  └─rhel-swap 253:1  0    2G  0 lvm [SWAP]
sdb           8:16   0  5.1G  0 disk
├─sdb1        8:17   0  499M  0 part
├─sdb2        8:18   0  499M  0 part
└─sdb3        8:19   0  499M  0 part
sr0          11:0    1 1024M  0 rom

Partition summary:

Partition	Size	Intended FS	Name (PARTLABEL)
`/dev/sdb1`	499M	XFS	`xfspartition`
`/dev/sdb2`	499M	ext4	`ext4partition`
`/dev/sdb3`	499M	vfat (FAT32)	`vfatpartition`

References: GNU Parted Documentation

3 — Create filesystems

Format each partition with the desired filesystem and apply labels where helpful for /etc/fstab. Commands used:

# XFS on /dev/sdb1
root@control:~# mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb1

# ext4 on /dev/sdb2 and apply label "ext4fs"
root@control:~# mkfs.ext4 -L ext4fs /dev/sdb2

# FAT32 on /dev/sdb3 and set label "vfatpartition"
root@control:~# mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n vfatpartition /dev/sdb3

Tip: Use -L (or -n for vfat) to set a label you can reference in /etc/fstab via LABEL=<name>. For stable references across reboots and device enumerations, prefer UUID=. See man mkfs.xfs, man mkfs.ext4, and man mkfs.vfat for options.

4 — Create mount points and mount

Create directories to use as mount points and mount the newly formatted partitions:

root@control:~# mkdir /xfsmount /ext4mount /vfatmount

root@control:~# mount /dev/sdb1 /xfsmount
root@control:~# mount /dev/sdb2 /ext4mount
root@control:~# mount /dev/sdb3 /vfatmount

Verify mounts with lsblk:

root@control:~# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           8:0    0   20G  0 disk
├─sda1        8:1    0    1M  0 part
├─sda2        8:2    0    1G  0 part /boot
└─sda3        8:3    0   19G  0 part
  ├─rhel-root 253:0  0   17G  0 lvm /
  └─rhel-swap 253:1  0    2G  0 lvm [SWAP]
sdb           8:16   0  5.1G  0 disk
├─sdb1        8:17   0  499M  0 part /xfsmount
├─sdb2        8:18   0  499M  0 part /ext4mount
└─sdb3        8:19   0  499M  0 part /vfatmount
sr0          11:0    1 1024M  0 rom

Inspect mounted filesystems with a filtered mount output:

root@control:~# mount | egrep '/xfsmount|/ext4mount|/vfatmount'
/dev/sdb1 on /xfsmount type xfs (rw,relatime,seclabel,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,noquota)
/dev/sdb2 on /ext4mount type ext4 (rw,relatime,seclabel)
/dev/sdb3 on /vfatmount type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed)

Check available space with df -h:

root@control:/# df -h
Filesystem                   Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/rhel-root        17G   7.6G  9.5G  45% /
/dev/sda2                    960M  353M  608M  37% /boot
/dev/sdb1                    435M   34M  402M   8% /xfsmount
/dev/sdb2                    458M   14K  429M   1% /ext4mount
/dev/sdb3                    499M     0  499M   0% /vfatmount

5 — Make mounts persistent in /etc/fstab

To ensure the filesystems mount automatically at boot, add entries to /etc/fstab. Prefer UUID= or LABEL= references rather than device node paths like /dev/sdb1, since device names can change. Obtain UUIDs and label information:

root@control:~# blkid /dev/sdb3
/dev/sdb3: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="B195-D19A" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="vfatpartition" PARTUUID="8c4bffb6-0bfc-4cff-9529-c4dfe33d6193"

Or list filesystem information for all devices:

root@control:~# lsblk --fs
NAME   FSTYPE      LABEL        UUID                                   MOUNTPOINTS
sdb
├─sdb1 xfs                       4f965fc2-f957-47cf-a7a8-ef503b6bfb95   /xfsmount
├─sdb2 ext4        ext4fs      356cf60a-b4c4-4294-83cb-42273fbd8cbe   /ext4mount
└─sdb3 vfat        vfatpartition B195-D19A                             /vfatmount

Edit /etc/fstab (example snippet). This file controls mounts at boot:

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Tue Mar 31 10:50:07 2026
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk/'.
# See man pages fstab(5) https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/fstab.5.html, findfs(8) https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/findfs.8.html, mount(8) https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/mount.8.html and/or blkid(8) https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/blkid.8.html for more info.
#
# After editing this file, run 'systemctl daemon-reload' to update systemd
# units generated from this file.
#
UUID=d3b9cb8c-5cf7-45cb-8bef-9dec51747be4  /               xfs     defaults        0 0
UUID=691cc3c4-617b-46de-88a8-72845adc7636  /boot           xfs     defaults        0 0
UUID=f7ba6641-f5c1-4503-a64f-c804eda85768  none            swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/sdb1       /xfsmount       xfs     defaults        0 0
LABEL=ext4fs    /ext4mount      ext4    defaults        0 0
UUID=B195-D19A  /vfatmount      vfat    defaults        0 0

Notes on the example:

The /dev/sdb1 entry uses a device path — acceptable for demos but not recommended for production.
The ext4 filesystem is mounted by label (LABEL=ext4fs).
The vfat filesystem is mounted by UUID (UUID=B195-D19A) — recommended for stability.

After saving /etc/fstab, reload and test:

Reload systemd units generated from fstab:

root@control:~# systemctl daemon-reload

Test fstab entries by attempting to mount all filesystems:

root@control:~# mount -a

If mount -a completes without errors, the fstab entries are valid and the system should mount those filesystems automatically on boot. Verify with lsblk:

root@control:~# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           8:0    0    20G  0 disk
├─sda1        8:1    0     1M  0 part
├─sda2        8:2    0     1G  0 part /boot
└─sda3        8:3    0    19G  0 part
  ├─rhel-root 253:0  0   17G  0 lvm  /
  └─rhel-swap 253:1  0    2G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
sdb           8:16   0   5.1G  0 disk
├─sdb1        8:17   0   499M  0 part /xfsmount
├─sdb2        8:18   0   499M  0 part /ext4mount
└─sdb3        8:19   0   499M  0 part /vfatmount
sr0           11:0   1  1024M  0 rom

You can also test full unmount/remount to ensure behavior:

root@control:~# umount /xfsmount /ext4mount /vfatmount
root@control:~# mount -a

Always validate /etc/fstab changes with mount -a before rebooting. A malformed fstab can leave the system unbootable or in rescue mode.

Summary

In this tutorial you have:

Created a GPT partition table on /dev/sdb
Added three partitions (XFS, ext4, VFAT)
Formatted each partition with appropriate filesystem tools and applied labels/UUIDs
Mounted the filesystems and verified them using lsblk, mount, and df
Made mounts persistent by adding entries to /etc/fstab and testing with mount -a

Introduction

Working with the Command Line

File Management

Working with Text Files

Output Redirection

User Management

Linux Permissions

Enhanced Command Line

Storage Management

Managing Services

Controlling the Boot Process

Scheduling Future Tasks

Working with Logs

Installing Software

Process Management & Tuning

Managing Network Configuration and Security

SELinux

Configuring SSH

Demo Basic Storage

1 — List block devices

2 — Create partitions with parted

3 — Create filesystems

4 — Create mount points and mount

5 — Make mounts persistent in /etc/fstab

Summary

Watch Video

​1 — List block devices

​2 — Create partitions with parted

​3 — Create filesystems

​4 — Create mount points and mount

​5 — Make mounts persistent in /etc/fstab

​Summary

Watch Video

1 — List block devices

2 — Create partitions with parted

3 — Create filesystems

4 — Create mount points and mount

5 — Make mounts persistent in /etc/fstab

Summary