It looks like the program 'gnome-disk-utility' also called 'disks' on my Debian installation. It is a program that can be used to format or encrypt disk partitions, or display what disks and partitions exist on the system. As others noted, it may be that this program is set to auto-start after booting. Where or how that happens would depend on what OS/desktop is installed and how it is configured.
Here is link to info about the program (or my best guess as to the program).
Just install
gkrellm
and enable cpu freq plugin. Keep watching the cpu freq. It is likely the cpu gets throttled.
There should be a button for self-tests
sudo apt update && sudo apt install --reinstall --install-recommends gnome-disk-utility
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Disks app does everything and will set the permissions for the user. Explore the settings. It looks simple but is pretty powerful with a intuitive gui. Encryption. unmount and unlock at boot, Disk APM, Writecache, standby, repair.... just about everything. I use Plasma and its the only disk software I use.
1) Go buy hard drive
2) Shut down computer and install hard drive
3) Boot up computer
$ sudo gnome-disks
https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Disks
( The gears button has the menus for configuring the selected item )
4) Create and format a new partition and filesystem
After that, you want to temporarily mount it somewhere, then copy over your home. Oh, btw, do all this, not as sudo, but logged directly into the root account.
Once the new-home-filesystem is mounted, copy/move the contents of /home over to it. MAKE SURE YOU PRESERVE PERMISSIONS AND CONTEXTS ( cp -a )
Then, edit fstab ( gnome-disks can do it in the mount options part to mount the new /home filesystem to the now empty /home subdirectory off of /
So, you're going to end up with your current disk partitions untouched, and a new disk (sdb) with a new partition (sdb1) and filesystem (ext4) that has what used to be in your /home directory.
Reboot, login as root, use 'mount' to see if the new filesystem is mounted on /home and see if the user subdirs are there. Then try to login as your normal user.
> even when using mint/ubunus "disks" program i was running into the same problem.
Is that the same as Gnome Disks? That's a program that might implement such a feature. You could try filing a bug. But don't be surprised if they tell you that using ext4 for removable media can be problematic.
> Why isnt ext4 the best for removable media?
My comment did list three reasons...