On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 12:19:53PM +0100, John Hodrien scribbled in "Re: R710/PERC H700/H800/MD1200 disk naming": > On Tue, 3 Aug 2010, Robin Bowes wrote: > > > On 03/08/10 11:46, Stroller wrote: > >> On 2 Aug 2010, at 22:11, Ken Nishimura wrote: > >>> I assume that making a few large virtual disks (mostly segregated > >>> by disk type and enclosure location) and using LVM to slice and dice > >>> is the way to go? > >> I find the thought horrifying. I choose servers like the PowerEdge > >> because they have hardware RAID. LVM would seem, as a wild > >> generalisation, to undermine that. > > Not at all. > > > > You still have your hardware RAID, but you can manage volumes and usage > > more easily on top if it. Much easier than using physical partitions. > > I couldn't agree more, and I think this is really important to stress. I'll second (or third?) that.
> LVM merely gives you options that you don't have without it. It's really not > a pain; treat it simply and there's really very little to it. There's times I > am annoyed by a lack of LVM on machines because I find it handy to use what > LVM can offer me, but it's too late. There aren't times I find the inverse to > be the case. Ever since I found LVM all those years ago, I've loved the flexibility that it provides -- and for once, this flexibility comes without any compromise or negative side effect. I simply don't build servers without LVM anymore. And to make Stroller happy, you can still use file-system labels ;) > Combine LVM with iSCSI and you really can have some serious fun that you'd > never even think of if you're not in that mindset. Again, I heartily agree. We recently expanded our SAN using Debian, LVM, iSCSI, and a 16 hot-swap chassis. Provisioning targets is a breeze, and unscripted would take only 3 commands, 4 if you're using ACLs for the initiators. (To be fair, if you want persistence we have to edit the iSCSI daemon's config file, but that's hardly an issue). And I haven't even started on snapshot backups either... LVM is made of win. Cheers. Dameon. -- ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ooOoo <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< Dr. Dameon Wagner, Senior ICT Specialist, Depts. of Computer Science & Information Systems, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. :Beta tester for Pegasus & Mercury/32 (www.pmail.com): ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ooOoo <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< _______________________________________________ Linux-PowerEdge mailing list [email protected] https://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge Please read the FAQ at http://lists.us.dell.com/faq
