Questions about adding an external HDD

[Blanny]

OK, so I have managed to install the latest version of Raspbian-Jessie to a SD card. I put it in my Pi and have done "Sudo apt-get update", "Sudo apt-get upgrade" and "rpi-update".

The next thing I want to do is introduce an external USB HDD. The device currently has no partitions set and, therefore currently free of data. I would like to have a 10Gb partition and set that up so that my pi loads the OS from that instead of the SD card. I would also like to have another partition where I will store pictures, videos etc.

I have numerous questions but for now I will stick to:

1. What file format does the 10Gb partition need to be, in order for me to transfer the OS files onto it?
2. What file format does the second partition need to be? I eventually want to be able to transfer files over to it from my PC. I'm presuming it needs to be NTFS, is this correct?
3. What is the easiest way to set these partitions up, transfer the OS to the first partition and tell the Pi to use the 1st partition rather than the SD card?

I'm a complete beginner so options that include using my PC as much as possible, rather than the PI, would be appreciated.

Thank you

[klricks]

OK, so I have managed to install the latest version of Raspbian-Jessie to a SD card. I put it in my Pi and have done "Sudo apt-get update", "Sudo apt-get upgrade" and "rpi-update".

The next thing I want to do is introduce an external USB HDD. The device currently has no partitions set and, therefore currently free of data. I would like to have a 10Gb partition and set that up so that my pi loads the OS from that instead of the SD card. I would also like to have another partition where I will store pictures, videos etc.

I have numerous questions but for now I will stick to:

1. What file format does the 10Gb partition need to be, in order for me to transfer the OS files onto it?
2. What file format does the second partition need to be? I eventually want to be able to transfer files over to it from my PC. I'm presuming it needs to be NTFS, is this correct?
3. What is the easiest way to set these partitions up, transfer the OS to the first partition and tell the Pi to use the 1st partition rather than the SD card?

I'm a complete beginner so options that include using my PC as much as possible, rather than the PI, would be appreciated.

Thank you

The search tool in this forum does not work well. Instead use Google and add raspberrypi.org as part of the search terms.
You will find dozens of links or tutorials on how to setup an external disk.
Note that most but not all of the system can be put on an external disk. A few boot files must remain on the SD card in the fat32 partition and the SD card must be present at all times.
There is no reason to have more than one partition. The partition used by the OS must be formatted as EXT4
Try to avoid NTFS at all costs. You only need NTFS if you are going to physically move the drive and connect to a Windows machine from time to time. Otherwise a Linux format will be just fine. The samba driver will trick the Windows into thinking the Linux format is NTFS. A NTFS formatted disk will be very slow.

[GTR2Fan]

This was the Windows approach I took when moving a Pi OS to an external HDD... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/431 ... %20HDD.pdf

[gkreidl]

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