begin quoting DJA as of Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 11:20:16PM -0800: > Carl Lowenstein wrote: > >On Dec 10, 2007 5:14 PM, SJS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip] > >>>>So... without LVM, it's simple. I pull the CDROM, drop in the disk, > >>>>partition, format, mount, and play with tar or rsync, modify fstab, > >>>>pull the old disk, move the new disk, reconnect the CDROM, and bob's > >>>>your uncle. > > Yep, that's the way I commonly do it if I want to replace an existing > physical drive with another (presumably larger) one.
It's the baseline approach. One would hope that with LVM, it would be easier. > >>>>With LVM, is it even simpler? > > Well, for me in these types of upgrades, fiddling with the hardware > rather than learning esoteric software has always been the more > expedient path. One would think, well, hope, that the software would make the task easier. The pvmove command does seem to help a lot -- and if you had hot-swappable devices (fireware, fiber-channel, etc.) then you could upgrade a disk and never touch your uptime. > >>>Yes. But you have to have empty space beforehand to allocate. Or you > >>>have to do some gyrations to shrink a filesystem that has excess space > >>>in order to reallocate it to the filesystem that needs it. Answers at > >>><http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/index.html> > >>Specifically, > > New hard drives are so cheap (and older spare ones usually abundant, if > needed) that I figure "Why bother with those kind of gymnastics?". I > just move the physical drive's contents to another of the needed size > and be done with it. It's not like I won't be able to use that old drive > (someone always needs more room in their hand-me-down system). You're a CB's friend. > >>...although it seems to require my changing where the CD-ROM drive > >>connects into the IDE chain(s). I would not consider this a _good_ > >>solution to the single most common disk-space problem I've ever had. > > I guess I don't follow - you need the CD-ROM to run a Live-CD? If I am > moving data to another physical drive, the CD-ROM drive temporarily > gives up a needed connector on the data cable, to which it is returned > after the copy-swap process. I don't remember having problems just > copying data to another drive from a running system. If necessary, I'll > back it up to my file server as the intermediate medium. All of the LVM examples I looked at mounted disks by location. e.g., "/dev/hda1". Swapping disks around would interfere with that. Presumably, disk labels could help here, but none of the examples I looked at did it that way, nor did I see that question in the FAQ. Maybe I just missed it. If you're not using LVM, there's no problem at all. The new drive can just drop in and replace the old drive. [snip] > That's THREE disks, right (Spare #1, Spare #2, and Disk-to-be-replaced)? Indeed. > Why bother with Spare #2? Just copy the data to Spare #1 (really a > replacement disk), swap disks, and be done with it? Can you tell LVM that /dev/hdb1 is now /dev/hda1 without losing information? [snip] > As I usually do, if needed. If the computer can handle the new drive > being physically connected (i.e. has spare data and power connectors) Power is simple -- get a splitter, or use the CDROM's power. So long as the power supply can handle the additional load, that is. > then I don't need an intermediate medium. The new drive does not really > have to be bolted in - I just use an old anti-static shipping envelope > to insulate the drive while it's temporarily connected and lying > somewhere inside or outside the box. I put the screws in the bottom, which gives the drive little feet that keep the circuit board from touching anything. > Of course, with a laptop, it's > obviously a bit trickier. Always. But do laptops really last long enough to make it worthwhile to replace the drive? > Usually the intermediate medium is my fileserver. Not fast, but now that > my LAN is all Gigabit, fast enough for a home system. If needed, I just > run it overnight, and log the copy or rsync output to a file somewhere > so I can check to see if everything copied okay. Heh. There ya go. -- Waiting for the introduction of AoE to the topic. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
