Tell me more ×
Ask Ubuntu is a question and answer site for Ubuntu users and developers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 22 down vote favorite
3

It seems to me that having both /mnt and /media is a little redundant. Is there any tangible difference between the two that I'm not aware of?

Is there a standard that most people follow for where to mount things, e.g. use one for certain types of devices, or is this completely subjective?

share|improve this question

3 Answers

up vote 24 down vote accepted

The new standard is that /media is where the system mounts removable media, and /mnt is for you to mount things manually.

See the filesystem hierarchy standard (FHS) for details.

share|improve this answer
By the way, that website link is unclear about the purpose of /mnt in this context. – djangofan Dec 1 '11 at 16:01
It says /mnt is for the system administrator. This implies that /mnt should not be used by the system itself. So if your computer automatically mounts a CD or DVD, it should mount it in /media, not /mnt. – Mikel Jan 26 '12 at 1:23
I certainly agree with that (with you), but the article didn't explicitly say that. – djangofan Jan 30 '12 at 17:32
if /mnt is for temporary and /media is for removable where should permanent non-removable devices/partitions be mounted. i.e. an internal HDD which is formatted as NTFS but needs to be automounted at startup? – Caltor Oct 17 '12 at 13:48
Without re-reading the spec, I'm pretty sure that since nothing else should use that drive unless explicitly pointed there, you can mount that drive's partitions anywhere you like, e.g. /data or /a. – Mikel Oct 18 '12 at 13:05
up vote 3 down vote

As I understand it, /media is for mounting things like optical drives and other temporary media, where /mnt is usually for permanently attached storage (generally internal disks).

Of course, you can also mount a device anywhere you want... the /mnt and /media directories are more conventional though.

share|improve this answer
up vote 4 down vote

/mnt was already accepted as a place to manually and temporarily mount external media. The /media directory was created as a place under which multiple media, external or otherwise, could be automatically mounted.

share|improve this answer
I can't help but notice that your answer and kiswa's answer are exact opposite. So, who is right?? The website Mikel provided isn't clear enough. – djangofan Dec 1 '11 at 16:02
@djangofan, mine ;) – psusi Dec 2 '11 at 2:29

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.