Why is my Postgres database working for a while and then not able to “start server” once restarted?
Okay, I think I've figured it out. Might be overkill but it works:

First thing I did was format and mount my 1TB SSD. Here is a good video for a walkthrough for formatting to ext4 and mounting. The difference between the video is that I've updated the fstab file to check my SSD during bootup or &quot;0 2&quot; at the end of the SSD mount options instead of &quot;0 0&quot;.

Secondly, I installed Postgres. Here is a good walkthrough for that. The directions provided in that blog were more than I needed, but a good walkthrough nonetheless. I simply installed Postgres with:


sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib


Third, I followed this walkthrough until the end of step two, but before beginning step 2, I added a symbolic link from /var/lib/postgresql/12/main to /YOUR/MOUNT/POSITION/postgresql/12/main by executing:

ln -s /var/lib/postgresql/12/main /YOUR/MOUNT/POSITION/postgresql/12/main


Lastly, before restarting the postgres server, I used this website to help me better configure my server. Enter your specs and it should give you some useful configuration settings.