On Thursday 07 April 2011 05:22:41 Dale wrote: > Hi, > > Quick question about LVM. I have a 750Gb drive that has miscellaneous > stuff on it. Stuff likes videos, music, pictures, ISO files and a few > other things. It's not full yet but it is working on it. I have my OS > on sda. The large drive is on sdc. If I buy another drive it should be > sdd. I think this is possible from what I have read but want to make > sure. Could I put sdc and sdd on LVM but the OS remain as it is with > LVM not involved at all? Basically, my OS stays just like it is and is > not touched my LVM at all but the two larger drives are managed by LVM.
Simple (and complete answer): Yes, you can use LVM only for a subset of the drives you have inside a system. You will need to do it in the following steps though: - create PV, LVM and LV on the new drive - copy data over - create PV on old drive and add it to LVM Contact me or list if you need help with the actual commands and syntax. (There are plenty of howtos around) > I want to do it this way because I don't trust LVM enough to put my OS > on. Just my personal opinion on LVM. Interesting argument. You don't trust LVM, so you put your personal files on there, but not the easily replacable stuff like OS? :) > If there is a better solution to link two large drives, I'm open to > those ideas as well. LVM is all I can think of is why I mention it. RAID-0 (if they're same size) or linking them together. Compared to those, I would always recommend LVM as that is easier to maintain then JBOD or RAID-0. There might also be filesystems that include disk-spanning, but if you're already not convinced about LVM being reliable, I wouldn't use one of these filesystems then. Please note, I have not lost data related to issues with LVM. I have, in the distant past, lost data related to issues with filesystems. Because of the latter, I rely on a combination of RAID-subsystems with LVM on top and reliable backups :) -- Joost Roeleveld
