How to add an SSD to your home server

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After converting an old laptop into a home server recently, there was one major thing that was bothering me. The laptop originally had two drives: a smaller SSD where Ubuntu Server was installed, and an ageing 1TB 2.5" HDD that was not only slow, but it was also incredibly loud. I could hear it scratching away in the background, which was not ideal.

To keep the setup quiet and snappy, I picked up a new 4TB 2.5" SSD to replace the old hard drive. For a home server that will be on 24/7, it felt like a worthwhile investment. The new SSD has more storage space, has less noise, less heat, lower power draw and (I hope) better reliability.

Update (October 2026): Only follow this guide on a blank drive. The luksFormat and mkfs.ext4 steps below create a new encrypted volume and a new filesystem, which destroys anything already on the disk. If you are re-following this after reinstalling the OS, and the drive still holds data you want, see Rebuilding my home server on Debian 13 instead. That post also covers two fixes to the crypttab and fstab lines further down: using a keyfile rather than a second passphrase prompt, and adding nofail so a failed unlock doesn't strand the boot in an emergency shell.

Steps I followed

First, I removed the old HDD from the laptop and fitted the new 2.5" SSD. I didn't want the old drive to go to waste, so I popped it into a 2.5" USB caddy. That way, I can still plug it in via USB and browse the old files if I ever need to.

Next, I booted up the laptop, connected to it via ssh, and checked that the system had detected the new drive:

sudo fdisk -l

In the output, I could see the disk listed as /dev/sdb:

Disk /dev/sdb: 3.64 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 870
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I wanted to encrypt the SSD using LUKS, so I ran the following (using /dev/sdb, which matched the label from above):

Warning: this erases the disk. Only run it on a drive you are happy to wipe.

sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdb

This prompted me to enter a passphrase. That passphrase will be required every time the laptop boots, and as far as I know, it can't be entered over ssh.

Since this drive will mostly be used for storing data, I decided to name it data. If you're following along, you can swap that out for any name you prefer.

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb data

Next, I formatted the encrypted volume using ext4 (my go-to for Linux filesystems):

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/data

I created a mount point:

sudo mkdir /mnt/data

And mounted the filesystem:

sudo mount /dev/mapper/data /mnt/data

To make sure the disk mounts automatically on boot, I needed the UUID of the encrypted drive. I found it using:

sudo cryptsetup luksUUID /dev/sdb

Then I opened /etc/crypttab to add the UUID:

sudo nano /etc/crypttab

Inside that file, I added this line (replacing <THE UUID> with the actual value):

data UUID=<THE UUID> none luks

Then I edited /etc/fstab:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

And added this line to ensure the filesystem mounts at boot:

/dev/mapper/data /mnt/data ext4 defaults 0 2

Finally, I rebooted the server to make sure everything started up correctly and the new drive mounted as expected.

Closing thoughts

I'm really pleased with the new SSD. It's almost four times the size of the old drive and completely silent, which makes a big difference in a quiet room. The upgrade was also easier than I expected. This was a quick win that was well worth it.

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