Once a new physical disk is added to a Linux host, it needs to be presented to the OS.

This is a five step process:

Step 1 – Partition the New Device

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 5221.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): u
Changing display/entry units to sectors

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e   extended
p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First sector (63-83886079, default 63):
Using default value 63
Last sector or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (63-83886079, default 83886079):
Using default value 83886079

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

 
Step 2 – Create an EXT3 File System

[root@localhost ~]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
5242880 inodes, 10485752 blocks
524287 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
320 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 26 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
[root@localhost ~]#

 
Step 3 – Add a mount point for the new disk. In this case we call it “newdisk”

[root@localhost ~]# mkdir /newdisk

 
Step 4 – Mount the New Disk

[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sdb1 /newdisk

 
Step 5 – Add the directory to the auto-mounted devices by editing the fstab file

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/fstab
LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sda3         swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/sdb1               /newdisk                ext3    defaults        1 2