Peter Humphrey wrote: > On Sunday, 6 January 2019 22:13:31 GMT Dale wrote: > >> Even from my simple setup, LVM adds more benefits to managing data and >> drives than it does risk. The biggest thing, placing blame where it >> lies. Blaming LVM for a drive dying is placing the blame on something >> that wasn't the root of the problem. The dying drive was the problem, >> using LVM or not. > He isn't doing that, though. As I read it, he recounted the tale of > recovering > data from a failed drive, then imagined how much worse it would be if it were > in an LVM setup. [Reported speech and mixed-up tenses causing me a problem > here...] > > Thanks Gevisz, that was interesting. What we used to call a cautionary tale. >
>From what I've read, that can be overcome. If you get say a SMART message that a drive is failing, just remove that drive or remove the whole LVM setup and use something else until a working drive setup can be made. Once ready, then move the data, if the drive still works, to the new drive. That is basically what I did when I swapped a smaller drive for a larger one. I moved the data from one drive to another. It did it fairly quickly. Someone posted that it may even be faster to do it with LVM's pvmove than it is with cp or rsync. I don't know how true that is but from what I've read, it moves the data really efficiently. If the drive has a very limited time before failure, speed is important. If the drive is completely dead, replace the drive and hope the backups are good. Either way, LVM or not, a failing drive is a failing drive. The data has to be moved if the drive still works or the data is gone if it just up and dies. The biggest thing, watching the SMART messages about the health of the drive. In the past when I've had a drive fail, I got error messages well ahead of time. On one drive, I removed the drive, set it aside, ordered a replacement drive, installed both drives and copied the data over. After I did all that, I played with the drive until it failed a day or so later. Lucky? Most likely. Still, it gave me time to transfer things over. While I get that LVM adds a layer to things, it also adds some options as well. Those options can prove helpful if one uses them. Just my thinking. Dale :-) :-)
