Mount on-demand for SATA and USB

MrNice · January 30, 2026, 2:30pm

Hello there,
For many years I had a working config for my 5 HDDs SATA connected to a power switch and my USB/SATA bay.
For some reason, I can’t write on some of them and I have to fix it.
General question:
Nowadays, what is the best practice to automount rw SATA HDDs on-demand when I switch it on or when I plug and switch on a HDD in my USB bay?
I know I can use or autofs/auto.master or fstab. what is the best way?
Many thanks

hcvv · January 30, 2026, 3:49pm

I use automount through systemd for NFS, but you can of course adopt the entry for a local device.

boven.henm.xs4all.nl:/home/wij             /home/wij  nfs   noauto,nofail,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.mount-timeout=10,x-systemd.idle-timeout=5min          0  0

The extra options are:

noauto because we refrain from mounting at boot;
nofail as an extra, may not be needed;
x-systemd.automount to let systemd-automount do it’s work: mount when required;
x-systemd.mount-timeout=10 time before it errors because of e.g. NFS server down;;
x-systemd.idle-timeout=5min after 5 minutes of no usage the fs will be unmounted (to be mounted auto at next access)

See also:

man systemd.automount
man systemd.mount

MrNice · January 30, 2026, 4:39pm

Thank you, I’ll remove my old way (autofs) and change to fstab.
Just a question; Iin the man, I can’t understand the practical difference between
x-systemd.mount-timeout=
and
x-systemd.device-timeout=
I have seen one or other in example. Should I write the both?

hcvv · January 30, 2026, 5:19pm

Hm, while they are different it is unclear to me what this means in reality. I doubt the device one is useful in my NFS mount, but you have hardware devices.

I guess, a bit of testing might help you without being dangerous.

MrNice · January 31, 2026, 11:05am

I got the anwser from Grok with the question:

linux, in fstab file, systemd command
What is the difference between the option
x-systemd.mount-timeout=
and
x-systemd.device-timeout=

A bit long to copy here.
Short:
x-systemd.device-timeout=
For network and any mount where the device node might be missing at first

x-systemd.mount-timeout=
For any case where the device exists but mount hangs/takes forever

Many thanks for your help

MrNice · January 31, 2026, 1:06pm

I made some tests but it seems to be not very handy for my usage.
With autofs, when I started Opensuse without the spare HDD, I didn’t see the mount point in the file manager (Caja/Nautilus). When needed, I switched on the HDD and it appeared in the leff side of Caja with the little arrow to unmount it.
With fstab, when I switch on the HDD nothing appears. I have to create a bookmark but the bookmark is always visible and I can’t guess if the HDD is mounted or not. Moreover there is not way in Caja to unmount it.
If I can’t get a better interface, fstab is not what I need.

Any idea ?

malcolmlewis · January 31, 2026, 2:42pm

@MrNice In Nautilus if I plug in a USB device it appears fine, if I have a bookmark and connect, it shows up at the bottom and the ability to unmount just like USB devices. This sounds like a bug with caja?

MrNice · February 1, 2026, 12:18pm

Yes, with a USB device, it shows up but not with SATA.
fstab for theses device is

# On-demand SATA HDD mount
UUID=e36711e7-67c4-460c-b002-529e09e7c792  /mnt/Store1  ext4  noauto,nofail,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.mount-timeout=10,x-systemd.idle-timeout=10min  0 0

I use MATE that include Caja. Do you think I should try Nautilus? Is there any incompatibility to install it beside Caja?

malcolmlewis · February 1, 2026, 3:11pm

@MrNice from memory there maybe a udev rule that is hiding the SATA devices… I would suggest running udevadm monitor and then attach the SATA device and check output.

I also see https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gvfs/-/issues/738

MrNice · February 1, 2026, 3:30pm

~> udevadm monitor
monitor will print the received events for:
UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing
KERNEL - the kernel uevent

KERNEL[9572.585133] add      /devices/virtual/devlink/:ata3--scsi:2:0:0:0 (devlink)
KERNEL[9572.585570] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0 (scsi)
KERNEL[9572.585686] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0 (scsi)
KERNEL[9572.585722] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/scsi_device/2:0:0:0 (scsi_device)
KERNEL[9572.585818] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/scsi_generic/sg0 (scsi_generic)
KERNEL[9572.585882] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/scsi_disk/2:0:0:0 (scsi_disk)
KERNEL[9572.585922] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/bsg/2:0:0:0 (bsg)
KERNEL[9572.586886] add      /devices/virtual/bdi/8:0 (bdi)
UDEV  [9572.591506] add      /devices/virtual/devlink/:ata3--scsi:2:0:0:0 (devlink)
UDEV  [9572.592425] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0 (scsi)
UDEV  [9572.593303] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0 (scsi)
UDEV  [9572.593319] add      /devices/virtual/bdi/8:0 (bdi)
UDEV  [9572.594115] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/scsi_device/2:0:0:0 (scsi_device)
UDEV  [9572.594297] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/scsi_disk/2:0:0:0 (scsi_disk)
UDEV  [9572.594429] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/scsi_generic/sg0 (scsi_generic)
UDEV  [9572.594715] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/bsg/2:0:0:0 (bsg)
KERNEL[9572.623096] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/block/sda (block)
KERNEL[9572.623140] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/block/sda/sda1 (block)
KERNEL[9572.623167] bind     /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0 (scsi)
UDEV  [9572.787804] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/block/sda (block)
UDEV  [9572.916645] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/block/sda/sda1 (block)
UDEV  [9572.917215] bind     /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/0000:01:00.1/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0 (scsi)

What do you see?
I tried Nautilus, same issue
When no file manager window is open and I switch on the HDD, there is no new window

malcolmlewis · February 1, 2026, 3:35pm

@MrNice So it’s sda1 that is hot plugged? I would suggest a visit to the MATE and Caja folks upstream for pointers.

MrNice · February 1, 2026, 4:07pm

Yes, this is the first I switched on. Nothing appears in Caja, even no window show up.

Do you have any link to MATE forum/support, I can’t find one. Only IRC but nobody is there.

malcolmlewis · February 1, 2026, 4:09pm

Contact details here https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:MATE

MrNice · February 7, 2026, 12:43pm

For reference, after lot of reading:
This issue is due to my bad command in fstab
noauto,x-systemd.automount
tells systemd:
• Do not mount at boot
• Do not mount when the device appears
• Mount only when something accesses /mnt/Store1
Caja shows nothing
With these commands, it is the expected behavior.
Moreover to get a good Caja integration prefer /run/media/{$USER}/myHDD as mount point.
The command should be:
UUID=e36711e7-67c4-460c-b002-649e9e792 /run/media/user1/Store1 ext4 nofail,x-systemd.idle-timeout=10min 0 0

Thanks for you time

hcvv · February 7, 2026, 2:22pm

Re-reading your original question in the title and the first post, there was no mention at all of something named “caja”.
Thus I gave you the solution that answers exactly to want you mention:

system · February 14, 2026, 2:23pm

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