[CentOS] When should LVM be used?

[Robert Heller]

At Mon, 9 Aug 2010 04:00:27 -0500 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 8:52 AM, Drew <drew.kay at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > LVM adds flexability that regular partitioning can't.
> >
> > Example 1. Say you've mounted an entire 2TB disk as /home and it's
> > almost full. Now you want to add another 2TB to /home. How do you?
> > Easiest way is with LVM. You just add the new disk into LVM's pool of
> > storage and expand the home partition (Logical volume) to use the new
> > space. Now you have a single filesystem spread across two disks.
> >
> > Example 2. Now let's say that you bought a NAS device (QNAP, Drobo,
> > Buffalo) that does iSCSI or NFS and you want to move your data off the
> > two local disks. With LVM you just add the new 'disk' into the pool
> > then tell LVM to move existing data off the 'old' disk.
> >
> > Try doing that with parted. :-P
> 
> I understand the advantages when using a server, but my personal
> computer is a Small Form Factor Dell GX270 with only one hard drive
> slot.  But I'll look closer into LVM options when I install on the
> bigger hard drive. Thanks.

I use LVM on my *laptop* with a 40 gig hard drive...  Very convientent,
esp. when I upgraded from CentOS 4.8 to CentOS 5.<mumble>.  My laptop
does NOT have any removable media -- that is it is NOT possible to boot
off a live CD to repartition the hard drive, so using something like
parted is not really a useful option.  I can do a PXE boot and run the
installer that way.  Is is just easier to be able to 'repartition' while
running the live system (eg doing lvcreate, lvresize, etc. as needed).

> 

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