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  • external hard drive as a means of increasing the amount of storage space for their account - Really? My answer to this would be no, you can't plug your cheap USB drive into my server. Surely you have some supported method to expand your storage space as needed. Permitting users to attach USB drives your server simply is not scaleable. If you are still USB2 your bandwidth for USB is very limited. Commented Nov 22, 2013 at 19:27
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    I'd avoid mounting filesystems on directories you, the sysadmin, can't control. What if the user decides to rename /home/user/usbDrive? The system will fail to boot. I'd mount it on a root-owned directory, say /l/userdrive, and create a single directory in it, /l/userdrive/user, owned by the user and mode 700. All the user's files will go in, or under, /l/userdrive/user. You can symlink to this from /home/user/usbDrive for the user's convenience. Commented Nov 22, 2013 at 19:46
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    I would tell them no. It's a server after all. Commented Nov 22, 2013 at 22:28
  • I understand the concerns mentioned, but the objective remains. @Mark Plotnick: thank you for offering a solution that addresses the obvious security concerns. Any additional advise is welcome. Commented Nov 25, 2013 at 23:13
  • I would imagine the USB drive would be msdos formatted, is that correct? Commented Oct 31, 2015 at 5:54