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I am installing Ubuntu on my laptop that has 500GB HDD and a 32GB mSATA SSD. The mSATA is always recognized as sdb and cant change it to sda. Tried to change my BIOS boot order to the secondary drive first. Is it okay to install Ubuntu on sdb?

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There is no problem about where you install Ubuntu, always keeping in mind don't deleting anything and doing a backup of your important files, just in case. Lets see my case:

$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 13.7 GB, 13701316608 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1665 cylinders, total 26760384 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8e48c4c5

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1         2104515    26748224    12321855   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              63     2104514     1052226   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1549f232

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63   223629311   111814624+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2       225724416   336437306    55356445+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       223629312   225724415     1047552   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb4       336439294   390721535    27141121    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5       336439296   338391039      975872   83  Linux
/dev/sdb6       338393088   339390463      498688   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7       339392512   368687103    14647296   83  Linux
/dev/sdb8       368689152   390721535    11016192   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Please ignore any pettiness here.

As you can see, I have another disk installed, but mine is an IDE, and for some weird reason it got first that my SATA disk. This is because of how the Motherboard organizes the BUSes:

$ lspci | grep IDE
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FW (ICH6/ICH6W) SATA Controller (rev 03)

Here,we can see that my IDEs devices are first in the BUS in the motherboard, hence whenever I install a device using the IDE bus, it supersede my SATA device.

In conclusion

There is no problem if your drive is sda, sdb, sdz. In fact, Ubuntu don't use those identifiers since they can change with addition/removing of drives, but use a UUID, which in plain words is a Unique Identifier for the partition/drive.

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