[ale] Looking for recommendations on LVM + soft Raid on home server

[Robert]

>Hmm.  Yes, what I was doing was reducing the size of /home and /u so
>that they were in total smaller than the new 1TB disk I bought. 
>
>And the LVM GUI interface tells you it has to umount them, and when you
>ok that, of course it can't unmount them. 
>
>So, adding doesn't take a rescue boot.   Only problem is I've already
>stuffed the chassis full, so I'm not likely to be adding drives.  I
>guess I could replace the 1TB drive with a 2TB drive once they get to be
>$9 each next year. 

Ah, yes, if you initially allocate all your space, add isn't that useful.

>From your initial post:

>So, I'm thinking of a layout like this:
>
>        /dev/md0 on /boot type ext3 (rw)   (whatever boot takes)
>        /dev/md1 on / type ext3 (rw)          (about 50GB)
>        /dev/md2 on VolumeGroup00         (about 1TB)
>                  And logical volumes for /home and /u, which can be
>        resized as needed between /home and /u
>        /dev/sda? on /u2                              (remaining 300GB,
>        not Raid 1, just on the one bigger drive)

I'd start with

   /dev/md0 on /boot type ext3 (rw)   500MB (red hat install default size)
   /dev/md1 on VolumeGroup00          rest of disc
   /dev/VolumeGroup00/h /home type ext3  10G (or whatever.. about 20% bigger
                                              than current size)
   /dev/VolumeGroup00/r / type ext3  10G (for gui system; 4G for headless)
   /dev/VolumeGroup00/s swap   1 x ram size
   /dev/VolumeGroup00/t /tmp type ext3  4G
   /dev/VolumeGroup00/v /var type ext3  4G

I never try and allocate all the space.. I never know where I'll need it, and
having lots of available space lets me create new LVs or grow existing ones as
needed...  

I almost always rename VolumeGroup00 to something else to make auto-complete
easier.. I often pick a single letter not starting any filename in /dev/, like
'e', 'g', etc..