Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
a question about lvm , if i have 3 harddisk in a lvm setup for save data , and dont have any raid setup , just lvm for make a big virtual HD , now on of the 3 HD goes damage i can start with the other 2 left and only missing the data that was copy in the 3 HD area ? pd: sorry for my english On 12/26/06, Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 11:00:35AM -0500, Jay Zach wrote: I've played around with LVM a bit, but not a LOT I've often wondered if you have non-raid partitions making up the PV's of the LV's, and had a PV fail what would happen Generally, that is a Bad Thing(TM). Since all the PV's are lumped together, would one just have random data loss across the LV? That seems like it would be a pain in the behind to restore That's pretty much the size of it. A real pain. if that was the case Has anyone here lost a disk in a volume and can answer to that? (of course if one had mirrored disks making up the PV's that wouldn't be a concern) As much. You could always have *two* disk failures wipingout the mirrored pair (I heard about such things happening from manufacturing defects, e.g., the DeathStar drives from IBM/Hitachi). Any insight would be appreciated :) In general, I look at naked LVM as about the same reliability level as RAID0. The only thing for which I would use such a setup are for data which can be easily recreated. For example, if you are rendering CG animations and need *lots* of temporary space in a single volume. The worst thing that a complete disk failure will cause will be the loss of a few hours' work, which can be relatively easily recreated. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFkUnj5SXWIKfIlGQRAvOaAJ9ENTIfdrCQvnv8mRJFaQgfxXhwEgCfSemV ZHvt7lWkfuxedbcgUv4peg0= =rw9n -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 10:50:53AM -0400, E0x wrote: a question about lvm , if i have 3 harddisk in a lvm setup for save data , and dont have any raid setup , just lvm for make a big virtual HD , now on of the 3 HD goes damage i can start with the other 2 left and only missing the data that was copy in the 3 HD area ? That is only if you are very lucky. When you create a volume group or a logical volume, you can specify which physical volumes it should use for those, but that sort of defeats the purpose of LVM, which should handle those sorts of things for you transparently. Without RAID, you are really relying only on luck to keep your data safe. Do yourself a favor setup a RAID5 and run your LVM over that. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
i asking it because i was thinking in use lvm in desktop setup , and i can live with a harddisk lose and the data on it , but not with all data lost pd: i have some small HD On 12/29/06, Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 10:50:53AM -0400, E0x wrote: a question about lvm , if i have 3 harddisk in a lvm setup for save data , and dont have any raid setup , just lvm for make a big virtual HD , now on of the 3 HD goes damage i can start with the other 2 left and only missing the data that was copy in the 3 HD area ? That is only if you are very lucky. When you create a volume group or a logical volume, you can specify which physical volumes it should use for those, but that sort of defeats the purpose of LVM, which should handle those sorts of things for you transparently. Without RAID, you are really relying only on luck to keep your data safe. Do yourself a favor setup a RAID5 and run your LVM over that. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFlS3p1snWssAFC08RAo8aAKCB3Dzb5rwAFVyg8enUuFtxIOG3dgCeO8Jd LgdZi47TffFxzOB6YLQz8Po= =4ZzG -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 11:06:38AM -0400, E0x wrote: i asking it because i was thinking in use lvm in desktop setup , and i can live with a harddisk lose and the data on it , but not with all data lost Then carefully read the LVM documentation. There is a way to do what you want, but I would not recommend it. I would instead recommend using RAID5. Even with three smaller drives, you would lose only a small amount of the storage capacity. The capacity is (N - 1)*X, where N is the number of drives and X is the capacity of the smallest. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 11:06:38AM -0400, E0x wrote: i asking it because i was thinking in use lvm in desktop setup , and i can live with a harddisk lose and the data on it , but not with all data lost pd: i have some small HD On 12/29/06, Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 10:50:53AM -0400, E0x wrote: a question about lvm , if i have 3 harddisk in a lvm setup for save data , and dont have any raid setup , just lvm for make a big virtual HD , now on of the 3 HD goes damage i can start with the other 2 left and only missing the data that was copy in the 3 HD area ? That is only if you are very lucky. When you create a volume group or a logical volume, you can specify which physical volumes it should use for those, but that sort of defeats the purpose of LVM, which should handle those sorts of things for you transparently. Without RAID, you are really relying only on luck to keep your data safe. Do yourself a favor setup a RAID5 and run your LVM over that. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com I think (as Roberto implied) the answer in general is no. Losing one drive in a multi-drive LVM is a bit like losing a group of cylinders in a single drive. It depends on your partitioning scheme and the filesystem format - if you are unlucky all of your inodes could be on the failed disk and you lose everything. Not much better would be to have holes appearing randomly throughout your files. Only partitions which you know were not allocated any space on the failed drive would be safe and could be trusted. The one good thing is that unlike the situation with a single damaged or corrupted drive, in this case you would be able to determine fairly unambiguously which files were intact and which were damaged. Regards, DigbyT -- Digby R. S. Tarvin digbyt(at)digbyt.com http://www.digbyt.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 11:06:38AM -0400, E0x wrote: i asking it because i was thinking in use lvm in desktop setup , and i can live with a harddisk lose and the data on it , but not with all data lost for a desktop setup, using lvm over several small disks is essentially the same thing as using one large disk with several partitions on it. If one of the disks fail, you probably lose it all. That said, it can still be advantageous to use lvm in this context because of the flexibility down the road -- if you need to adjust the sizes of your partitions, you can do so easily. there is no other advantage and in fact there may be disadvantages because the additional number of disks increases the odds of encountering a failure. A pd: i have some small HD On 12/29/06, Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 10:50:53AM -0400, E0x wrote: a question about lvm , if i have 3 harddisk in a lvm setup for save data , and dont have any raid setup , just lvm for make a big virtual HD , now on of the 3 HD goes damage i can start with the other 2 left and only missing the data that was copy in the 3 HD area ? That is only if you are very lucky. When you create a volume group or a logical volume, you can specify which physical volumes it should use for those, but that sort of defeats the purpose of LVM, which should handle those sorts of things for you transparently. Without RAID, you are really relying only on luck to keep your data safe. Do yourself a favor setup a RAID5 and run your LVM over that. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFlS3p1snWssAFC08RAo8aAKCB3Dzb5rwAFVyg8enUuFtxIOG3dgCeO8Jd LgdZi47TffFxzOB6YLQz8Po= =4ZzG -END PGP SIGNATURE- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 11:06:38AM -0400, E0x wrote:
i asking it because i was thinking in use lvm in desktop setup , and i can
live with a harddisk lose and the data on it , but not with all data lost
for a desktop setup, using lvm over several small disks is essentially
the same thing as using one large disk with several partitions on
it. If one of the disks fail, you probably lose it all. That said, it
can still be advantageous to use lvm in this context because of the
flexibility down the road -- if you need to adjust the sizes of your
partitions, you can do so easily.
there is no other advantage and in fact there may be disadvantages
because the additional number of disks increases the odds of
encountering a failure.
Frankly, this advantage is pretty weak, IMO. So far, I see no real
need for it. I suppose that there are those who constantly tweak
their systems. The advantage usually touted is that one can easily
add new discs. But I'd rather have one large disc than several small
ones, anyway. I suppose one who constantly installed one OS after
another and wanted ease of repartitioning could use it. So far,
I see no advantage for normal users. I am astounded that some distros
use LVM as the default.
Mike
--
p=p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);};main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
You have found the bank of Larn.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 01:12:54PM -0600, Mike McCarty wrote: Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 11:06:38AM -0400, E0x wrote: i asking it because i was thinking in use lvm in desktop setup , and i can live with a harddisk lose and the data on it , but not with all data lost for a desktop setup, using lvm over several small disks is essentially the same thing as using one large disk with several partitions on it. If one of the disks fail, you probably lose it all. That said, it can still be advantageous to use lvm in this context because of the flexibility down the road -- if you need to adjust the sizes of your partitions, you can do so easily. there is no other advantage and in fact there may be disadvantages because the additional number of disks increases the odds of encountering a failure. Frankly, this advantage is pretty weak, IMO. So far, I see no real need for it. I totally agree... very weak advantage. I suppose that there are those who constantly tweak their systems. The advantage usually touted is that one can easily add new discs. But I'd rather have one large disc than several small ones, anyway. I suppose one who constantly installed one OS after another and wanted ease of repartitioning could use it. So far, I see no advantage for normal users. I am astounded that some distros use LVM as the default. that is astounding. talk about adding unneeded complexity (because it does...). Who does that as the default? So, though its a weak advantage, it can be useful. I have, several times now, had to tweak some partitions because they were too big/too small etc. LVM would have been nice. For example, I've got tons of extra room in my /home partition and was thinking of trying the hurd. would be nice to just tweak it with lvm and move ahead (does hurd support lvm yet?). A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 01:12:54PM -0600, Mike McCarty wrote:
[snip]
their systems. The advantage usually touted is that one can easily
add new discs. But I'd rather have one large disc than several small
ones, anyway. I suppose one who constantly installed one OS after
another and wanted ease of repartitioning could use it. So far,
I see no advantage for normal users. I am astounded that some distros
use LVM as the default.
that is astounding. talk about adding unneeded complexity (because it
does...). Who does that as the default?
Fedora Core 4. I haven't installed FC5 or FC6, so I don't know whether
they changed that later.
As far as adding unnecessary complexity, put SELinux on that burner,
too.
[snip]
Mike
--
p=p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);};main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
You have found the bank of Larn.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Saturday 23 December 2006 12:30, Alan Chandler wrote: On Friday 22 December 2006 23:05, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: I don't know about booting LVM, though. I think you still need traditional partitions for that. I have everything on raid but not lvm - but LVM I then use for I've played around with LVM a bit, but not a LOT I've often wondered if you have non-raid partitions making up the PV's of the LV's, and had a PV fail what would happen Since all the PV's are lumped together, would one just have random data loss across the LV? That seems like it would be a pain in the behind to restore if that was the case Has anyone here lost a disk in a volume and can answer to that? (of course if one had mirrored disks making up the PV's that wouldn't be a concern) Any insight would be appreciated :) -- For adult education nothing beats children. Tuesday Dec 26, 2006 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 11:00:35AM -0500, Jay Zach wrote: I've played around with LVM a bit, but not a LOT I've often wondered if you have non-raid partitions making up the PV's of the LV's, and had a PV fail what would happen Generally, that is a Bad Thing(TM). Since all the PV's are lumped together, would one just have random data loss across the LV? That seems like it would be a pain in the behind to restore That's pretty much the size of it. A real pain. if that was the case Has anyone here lost a disk in a volume and can answer to that? (of course if one had mirrored disks making up the PV's that wouldn't be a concern) As much. You could always have *two* disk failures wipingout the mirrored pair (I heard about such things happening from manufacturing defects, e.g., the DeathStar drives from IBM/Hitachi). Any insight would be appreciated :) In general, I look at naked LVM as about the same reliability level as RAID0. The only thing for which I would use such a setup are for data which can be easily recreated. For example, if you are rendering CG animations and need *lots* of temporary space in a single volume. The worst thing that a complete disk failure will cause will be the loss of a few hours' work, which can be relatively easily recreated. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sunday 24 December 2006 18:38, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 05:59:23PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Great. By the way, was that on a sarge or and etch? Or something else? Sarge. Most of my machines have a similar setup. It works great with etch as well. I usually have at least /usr, /var, /opt, /srv and /home as their own LV. -- Wesley J. Landaker [EMAIL PROTECTED] xmpp:[EMAIL PROTECTED] OpenPGP FP: 4135 2A3B 4726 ACC5 9094 0097 F0A9 8A4C 4CD6 E3D2 pgpzccrVD0HWr.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Saturday 23 December 2006 17:31, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 05:30:43PM +, Alan Chandler wrote: I have everything on raid but not lvm - but LVM I then use for /var/cache /usr/lib/openoffice heh heh. that's funny. I know its bloated, but giving it a whole lvm partition??! ;-) It was one of the areas blowing my 4G budget for the non LVM root partition. Since its not contiguous with anything else, I have no choice but to give it its own partition. -- Alan Chandler http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sat, 2006-12-23 at 16:51 -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Friday 22 December 2006 17:09, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. Thanks for all the previous replies. Another small question. I currently have Windows on this laptop. I will also have a 7 GB FAT32 partition so that data can be exchanged between windows and Linux. If this FAT32 is inside the same volume group as that of /, will it still be accessible from windows? or does lvm in some way shield the FAT32 partition from windows? Windows knows nothing of LVM. Therefore never can be used to exchange data on a FAT32 partition made upon LVM. -- greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The technology that is Stronger, better, faster: Linux signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sun 2006-12-24 08:09:04 +, Alan Chandler wrote: On Saturday 23 December 2006 17:31, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 05:30:43PM +, Alan Chandler wrote: I have everything on raid but not lvm - but LVM I then use for /var/cache /usr/lib/openoffice heh heh. that's funny. I know its bloated, but giving it a whole lvm partition??! ;-) It was one of the areas blowing my 4G budget for the non LVM root partition. Since its not contiguous with anything else, I have no choice but to give it its own partition. You could symlink /opt into somewhere else such as /usr -- David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 22, 2006 at 04:50:58PM -0700, Wesley J. Landaker wrote: On Friday 22 December 2006 15:09, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. 1) Does anyone use this or is it still in an experimental state? It's very stable and is used all over on real production systems. 2) Are there any good websites which compare lvm against traditional partitioning? Like what are the advantages, disadvantages of each etc., Other than some issues with needing legacy support for booting and a very slight increase in complexity, there are really no disadvantages. The etch installer will configure LVM for you pretty automatically. 3) Are there any new ways to have flexible partitions in one hard drive other than lvm? Yes, but LVM is the most stable and standard way that I know of. As others have mentioned, consult a recent LVM HOWTO for more general information. I would be happy to personally answer and specific questions you may have, although please keep the list CC'd. Can /var live on LVM, or is it needed on my nonLVM root partition for boot purposes? -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 05:15:20PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can /var live on LVM, or is it needed on my nonLVM root partition for boot purposes? $ mount |grep ^\/dev /dev/md1 on / type ext3 (rw) /dev/md0 on /boot type ext2 (rw) /dev/mapper/vg00-home on /home type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-usr on /usr type ext3 (rw,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-opt on /opt type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-var on /var type ext3 (rw,nosuid) /dev/mapper/vg00-usr_local on /usr/local type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-systemimager on /var/lib/systemimager type ext3 (rw) /dev/mapper/vg00-var_local on /var/local type ext3 (rw) Works great on LVM. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 05:34:33PM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 05:15:20PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can /var live on LVM, or is it needed on my nonLVM root partition for boot purposes? $ mount |grep ^\/dev /dev/md1 on / type ext3 (rw) /dev/md0 on /boot type ext2 (rw) /dev/mapper/vg00-home on /home type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-usr on /usr type ext3 (rw,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-opt on /opt type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-var on /var type ext3 (rw,nosuid) /dev/mapper/vg00-usr_local on /usr/local type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/mapper/vg00-systemimager on /var/lib/systemimager type ext3 (rw) /dev/mapper/vg00-var_local on /var/local type ext3 (rw) Works great on LVM. Great. By the way, was that on a sarge or and etch? Or something else? -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 05:59:23PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Great. By the way, was that on a sarge or and etch? Or something else? Sarge. Most of my machines have a similar setup. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Friday 22 December 2006 23:05, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: I don't know about booting LVM, though. I think you still need traditional partitions for that. You can, but you need your initramfs to load the appropriate modules. (I do not - I prefer to make a standard size partition for Root, and then use LVM to add logical volumes to that as and when necessary) I have everything on raid but not lvm - but LVM I then use for /var/cache /usr/lib/openoffice /usr/share/openclipart /usr/src as will as for my home directory and several subdirectories of that and a backup and archiving area -- Alan Chandler http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 05:30:43PM +, Alan Chandler wrote: On Friday 22 December 2006 23:05, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: I don't know about booting LVM, though. I think you still need traditional partitions for that. You can, but you need your initramfs to load the appropriate modules. yeah, makes sense. (I do not - I prefer to make a standard size partition for Root, and then use LVM to add logical volumes to that as and when necessary) I have everything on raid but not lvm - but LVM I then use for /var/cache /usr/lib/openoffice heh heh. that's funny. I know its bloated, but giving it a whole lvm partition??! ;-) A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Friday 22 December 2006 17:09, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. Another basic question regarding the use of lvm. If I have traditionally partitioned harddrive running debian Etch, can I make those partitions use lvm without loosing any data? I have been reading the HOWTO at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/ and it does not mention whether all these commands vgcreate etc., work destructively or non-destructively. Any ideas? thanks raju -- Kamaraju S Kusumanchi http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/ http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/ -- Jumpstart your tech career. University of Phoenix offers the top technology program 100% online. http://tags.bluebottle.com/fc/BgLEQfI8hY6yl7WgS6e9Ib5j4aQsw4252aEE/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 03:04:03PM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: Another basic question regarding the use of lvm. If I have traditionally partitioned harddrive running debian Etch, can I make those partitions use lvm without loosing any data? I have been reading the HOWTO at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/ and it does not mention whether all these commands vgcreate etc., work destructively or non-destructively. They are destructive. The best thing is to have an extra disk on hand where you can temporarily move everything you want to keep. Configure your main disk for LVM and then move the data back. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Sat, 2006-12-23 at 15:04 -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Friday 22 December 2006 17:09, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. Another basic question regarding the use of lvm. If I have traditionally partitioned harddrive running debian Etch, can I make those partitions use lvm without loosing any data? I have been reading the HOWTO at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/ and it does not mention whether all these commands vgcreate etc., work destructively or non-destructively. Any ideas? Better have backups. The answer is DESTRUCTIVELY. pvcreate causes the Physical Volume to be made ready for LVM' which means... wipeout anything there and clear it for use. vgcreate just put the pv you just created into a volume group. lvcreate then carves out logical volumes for you to use as filesystems or the like. Examples: princess:~# pvdisplay --- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sda1 VG Name miscVG PV Size 279.47 GB / not usable 0 Allocatable yes (but full) PE Size (KByte) 4096 Total PE 71545 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 71545 PV UUID fpBbEs-ZWAk-mfFQ-5fo2-HXzG-RUZ1-f3x1QE --- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sdb1 VG Name miscVG PV Size 279.47 GB / not usable 0 Allocatable yes (but full) PE Size (KByte) 4096 Total PE 71545 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 71545 PV UUID HqnFyL-scsV-8s6h-aaE3-KFMH-5J20-mEcK7Q --- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/hdh1 VG Name miscVG PV Size 189.91 GB / not usable 0 Allocatable yes (but full) PE Size (KByte) 4096 Total PE 48618 Free PE 0 Allocated PE 48618 PV UUID sKP0S0-tJpj-okFQ-Zuo3-Deu5-rIkB-ppm0px princess:~# vgdisplay --- Volume group --- VG Name miscVG System ID Formatlvm2 Metadata Areas3 Metadata Sequence No 3 VG Access read/write VG Status resizable MAX LV0 Cur LV1 Open LV 1 Max PV0 Cur PV3 Act PV3 VG Size 748.86 GB PE Size 4.00 MB Total PE 191708 Alloc PE / Size 191708 / 748.86 GB Free PE / Size 0 / 0 VG UUID D2mpF3-G9Ax-Awb0-hr8L-w23Q-P2Ta-Qbimm9 princess:~# lvdisplay --- Logical volume --- LV Name/dev/miscVG/usrlocalLV VG NamemiscVG LV UUIDK7a0Dk-N5kp-NRP6-t0SW-lpuZ-k3AS-pSHSKp LV Write Accessread/write LV Status available # open 1 LV Size748.86 GB Current LE 191708 Segments 3 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors 0 Block device 254:0 princess:~# df /usr/local Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/miscVG-usrlocalLV 785104896 288249284 496855612 37% /usr/local Hope that helps. -- greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The technology that is Stronger, better, faster: Linux signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Friday 22 December 2006 17:09, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. Thanks for all the previous replies. Another small question. I currently have Windows on this laptop. I will also have a 7 GB FAT32 partition so that data can be exchanged between windows and Linux. If this FAT32 is inside the same volume group as that of /, will it still be accessible from windows? or does lvm in some way shield the FAT32 partition from windows? thanks raju -- Kamaraju S Kusumanchi http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/ http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/ -- Click to compare save $100's on health insurance, free quote http://tags.bluebottle.com/fc/KCuXzzVO7xwu0jTqkiIScBLgM1AD0k/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
lvm vs traditional partitioning
I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. 1) Does anyone use this or is it still in an experimental state? 2) Are there any good websites which compare lvm against traditional partitioning? Like what are the advantages, disadvantages of each etc., 3) Are there any new ways to have flexible partitions in one hard drive other than lvm? thanks raju -- Kamaraju S Kusumanchi http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/ http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/ -- Click for free info on online degrees and make $150K/ year http://tags.bluebottle.com/fc/KCuXzzWmdO2dAIkuCjuKZATzbwIuBv/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 22, 2006 at 05:09:56PM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. 1) Does anyone use this or is it still in an experimental state? Most definitely not experimental. I use it on all of my own machines and have it deployed on mission critical servers at work. 2) Are there any good websites which compare lvm against traditional partitioning? Like what are the advantages, disadvantages of each etc., Read the LVM HOWTO. It is a bit dated but gives a good feel for the capabilities and limitations. 3) Are there any new ways to have flexible partitions in one hard drive other than lvm? EVMS? Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Fri, Dec 22, 2006 at 05:09:56PM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. 1) Does anyone use this or is it still in an experimental state? I use this on my home server (mail, video, audio, backups). Its great to be able to shuffle partitions around... seems to work fine. soon I'll go lvm over raid. I don't know about booting LVM, though. I think you still need traditional partitions for that. The lvm website has pretty good documentation, IIRC, and its really pretty easy to use. A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: lvm vs traditional partitioning
On Friday 22 December 2006 15:09, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: I heard lvm can be used to have partitions whose sizes can be changed over time in non-destructive way as far as the data is concerned. 1) Does anyone use this or is it still in an experimental state? It's very stable and is used all over on real production systems. 2) Are there any good websites which compare lvm against traditional partitioning? Like what are the advantages, disadvantages of each etc., Other than some issues with needing legacy support for booting and a very slight increase in complexity, there are really no disadvantages. The etch installer will configure LVM for you pretty automatically. 3) Are there any new ways to have flexible partitions in one hard drive other than lvm? Yes, but LVM is the most stable and standard way that I know of. As others have mentioned, consult a recent LVM HOWTO for more general information. I would be happy to personally answer and specific questions you may have, although please keep the list CC'd. -- Wesley J. Landaker [EMAIL PROTECTED] xmpp:[EMAIL PROTECTED] OpenPGP FP: 4135 2A3B 4726 ACC5 9094 0097 F0A9 8A4C 4CD6 E3D2 pgpri33q3QphR.pgp Description: PGP signature
