USB harddrives and device associations

[Darryl Clarke <smartssa@gmail.com>]

Hi,

This may be a simple question, or complicated.

I have a lot of USB drives that I deal with and I'm getting quite
annoyed that whenever I switch drives the /dev/sdX association changes
too.  I started on /dev/sda and now I'm currently on /dev/sdp and I
have to edit my fstab every time I switch drives around.

Even if I put it in the same port, the associated device changes.

So, here's my question.  Is there a way to have the device associated
be the same based on which USB port I plug it into?

example: (one root hub '1' with 4 ports and a 4 port hub plugged into it) 
port USB 1-1 -> /dev/sda
port USB 1-2 -> /dev/sdb
port USB 1-3 -> /dev/sdc
port USB 1-4 -> this is a 4 port hub
port USB 1-4.1 -> /dev/sdd
port USB 1-4.2 -> /dev/sde
port USB 1-4.3 -> /dev/sdf
port USB 1-4.4 -> /dev/sdg
etc.

That is basically how it would end up after the first boot. However,
if I unplug /dev/sda and plug in a different drive it will get
/dev/sdh and so on.

I dabbled in using LABEL based mounting, but unfortunately that only
works with extfs and a lot of these drives are FAT32 so I need to have
the dev stay consistant so I can not have to edit /etc/fstab every
time the associated device changes.

I'm open to any suggestions on alternate handling methods of what is
now only a few drives, but will be in the future hundreds. (only about
7 to 10 plugged in at once though ;))

Thanks.

-- 
Darryl
smartssa@gmail.com
http://smartssa.com / http://darrylclarke.com