[mythtv-users] filesystem choice for an 8TB logical drive.

Simon Hobson linux at thehobsons.co.uk
Mon Oct 19 18:05:57 UTC 2009


Andy Colson wrote:

>Just as a curious question, having never used LVM, if you can add 
>disks to raid5, and the filesystem (jfs/xfs) can be grown, what does 
>lvm give you that you didnt already have?

If you only have one partition on the drive then it doesn't really do 
anything for you. Once you have more than one partition then the only 
one you can resize is the last one.

LVM allows you to resize any Logical Volume (LV, roughly analogous to 
a partition). It also allows you to span multiple drives without raid 
(just add an extra Physical Volume to the Volume Group). It's also 
possible to remove a drive (assuming you've enough free space) and it 
will migrate all the data for you - while staying online. This also 
means you can migrate (while still live) to another disk - add the 
new disk and then remove the old one.

And of course, it gets round any restriction on number or partitions.

I resisted for some time, but then wondered why I'd left it so long !

-- 
Simon Hobson

Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
Christmas stocking fillers. Some available as e-books.


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