Using /mnt vs /media for Transmission storage on external hard drive

Question

I was wondering if it makes a difference to mount an external hard drive at /mnt vs /media. I'm making a Transmission seedbox using an RPi 3b+, and different tutorials are suggesting different things.

I know the RPi automatically mounts external hard drives at /media. Would it make sense to just point transmission to a download folder in /media instead of the extra work required to have my RPI automount an ext drive at /mnt and point transmission there. Any help would be appreciated?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The default names and structure for linux are defined in the Linux Standard Base (LSB).

Part of this document is the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

Herein you find the definition for /media : Mount point for removable media
and for /mnt : Mount point for a temporarily mounted filesystem.

So if your harddrive is removable (e.g. USB-drive) it will be mounted automatically under /media when you plug it in. So nothing is to do. If it is static and you have to mount it manually or within /etc/fstab you should mount it under /mnt.

Answer 2

It makes no difference where you mount the drive. HOWEVER the automatic mounting process creates directories under /media which can be problematic.

I recommend that manual mounted storage use /mnt