Cache Disk

This document explains hot to configure the .cache folder to be stored on a different disk.

Insall prerequisites

sudo apt install -y lvm2 xfsprogs

Get the name of the disk in most cases it will be /dev/sdb or /dev/vdb. You can use lsblk to find out.

export DISK_PATH="/dev/sdb"

sudo pvcreate $DISK_PATH -ff
sudo vgcreate cache-vg $DISK_PATH
sudo lvcreate --extents 100%FREE --name cache cache-vg

Since this will only be a cache disk we don't need a journaling filesystem.

sudo mkfs.xfs /dev/cache-vg/cache

Create a mount point:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/cache
sudo chattr +i /mnt/cache # prevents accidenal writes to this folder if the disk is not mounted

Add the following line to /etc/fstab:

echo '/dev/cache-vg/cache /mnt/cache xfs defaults,nofail 0 2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Mount the disk:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo mount /mnt/cache

The cache disk is now mounted.

sudo mv ~/.cache /mnt/cache/$(whoami)
sudo chown -R $(whoami): /mnt/cache/$(whoami)

sudo mkdir ~/.cache
sudo chown -R $(whoami): ~/.cache
sudo chattr +i ~/.cache

Add a bind mount to /etc/fstab:

echo "/mnt/cache/$(whoami) /home/$(whoami)/.cache none defaults,bind 0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo mount /home/$(whoami)/.cache

Your .cache folder is now on a different disk.