[ale] Oops - Want to rearrange two partitions

[Danny Cox]

Randal,

On Thu, 2006-10-19 at 14:26 -0400, Randal Jarrett wrote:
> I then make the 4th primary partition LVM from which I create my other
> partitions just a little more than the minimum size needed
> for /usr, /var, /opt, /tmp, /usr/local and /home.
> 
> By using LVM I get the flexibility to grow the partitions as needed.
> 
> Another major benefit is if I need additional space I can add another
> drive to the volume group and use it to add additional space to the
> existing LVM partitions.  This allows you to use some of the smaller
> disk drives that are sitting around.  If necessary you can add another
> disk controller such as a Promise card for even more drives.

	I agree LVM provides lots of flexibility.  However, I always had the
unfortunate experience of having a disk die at just the wrong time.  I'd
think that a logical volume containing a dead disk makes the whole
volume dead also :-(.

	So, I'll explain what I did about a year ago.  I have three disks: hda
has boot, root, and swap.  Root includes usr and var because I got tired
of fooling with who needed how much space.  I made root 5 GB, and it's
68% full, which seems fine to me.  Nowadays, you can hardly *find* a
disk of less than 80 GB, which makes the whole root size thing moot.

	/home is on a mirrored (RAID 1) setup with the other two disks.  What I
like about this is: if hda dies, I replace it, reload Fedora, and off I
go.  If one of the other disks dies, I can replace it, and the RAID 1
driver will bring it into sync even while I'm still using it.

	LVM is nice, but in a catastrophic situation it seems to add yet
another layer of frustration to me.  Of course, perhaps I completely
misunderstand it.  Wouldn't be the first time ;-).

-- 
Daniel S. Cox
Internet Commerce Corporation