Mounting USB devices with stable names

[Mike Wright]

Robin Laing wrote:
> Mike McCarty wrote:
> 
>> I have an issue which will shortly be important to me, though
>> in past it has not been a problem. It appears to me that it
>> may be a general problem in some ways.
>>
>> I have for some time used an external USB hard drive. I find that
>> sometimes it must be mounted as /dev/sda1 and sometimes /dev/sde1,
>> and have consequently made two entries in my /etc/fstab, and just
>> live with what I have. This occurs even though the disc is always
>> plugged into the same USB port.
>>
>> I now have a USB FLASH drive, and so this is going to be more
>> of a problem, as I have different file systems on those, and
>> have a need to specify the mount NOT to be "auto" to ascertain
>> the fs type, since I am overriding the default for the FLASH
>> drive. In any case, the FLASH drive is also not always appearing
>> as the same device. I don't want to have to become root and
>> fiddle /etc/fstab every time I try to mount the FLASH drive.
>>
>> I've seen others here with what appears to be a similar problem
>> with running two ethernet ports, and not being able to know
>> which will be eth0. I wonder whether this be related.
>>
>> In any case, would some please give me advice on how to handle
>> the "floating" USB devices?
>>
>> Thanks very muchly for your time.
>>
>> Mike
> 
> 
> I label all my devices when I format them.  They then mount as 
> /media/{label name}.
> 
> Heck, I the same name comes up on Mac's as well.  I would have to ask my 
> wife or daughter.
> 
> All my SD cards and USB sticks are named so I know which is which if I 
> have more than one plugged in at a time.
> 

Great advice.  I just put a label on a thumb drive using "e2label", went 
into /media and removed all the usbdisk* directories, then reinserted 
it. It automounted under /media with the label as its mount point.

Thanks for the good tip!
:m)