Home Server GuideBuild it. Understand it. Maintain it.

Configure Storage

Identify Your Drives

Match Linux device names to the physical drives before any formatting or RAID command can erase data.

Guide difficulty⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Beginner Friendly
Estimated time⏱️ Around 20–40 minutesEstimated for a first-time user.

  1. List disks and serial numbers

    lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,TYPE,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINTS,MODEL,SERIAL

  2. List stable device links

    ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/

  3. Compare with your physical labels

    Record which serial number belongs to each bay. The microSD card must not be included in later storage commands.

  4. Count the expected drives

    The reference RAID build should show four equal-capacity hard drives plus the Pi system card.

IMAGE PLACEHOLDERTerminal output from lsblk showing the system card and four SATA drives, with annotations explaining each row.
Required image: Terminal output from lsblk showing the system card and four SATA drives, with annotations explaining each row.
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