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 Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:47 am Post subject: Restoring LVM after a Hard Drive Failure (no raid) |
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At the moment, I am running Fedora 8 with 5 physical hard drives (all of
different sizes) but *NOT* using LVM. I have a lot of data spread all over the
place and it is clear that I need to (1) back it all up more often and (2) more
efficiently use the space. So I am setting up a "backup server" using a spare
machine that will sync up to the main server each night. So I am thinking that
since the data will be duped anyway now might be a good time to actually think
about a strategy instead of just flinging drives at the machine every so often.
In reading about LVM it sounds intriguing, but I can't seem to find out what is
involved if a physical drive dies within the volume group. Lots of articles
seem to say you should use raid for redundancy but I pretty much will have a
mirror with the other machine.
If you don't use raid and one hard drive out of 5 in the LVM volume group dies,
is there no way to get the data off of the remaining 4 (ie. does the volume
group just get "corrupting" and that's it)?
My plan was to have the /, swap, and other system directories on 1 small (40gb)
drive outside of the LVM. Then put the other 4 drives (totalling 1.4 TB) into a
LVM group. The "backup server" would be similar with 1 drive out of the LVM for
the system, but 3 drives in an LVM group totalling 1.5 TB.
Wasted space issues aside, is this setting myself up for a major hassle if I
lose a hard drive (hopefully on only one machine at a time!!!)?
Can anyone think of a better solution (with pros and cons)?
Miguel |
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Johnny Rebel
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:49 am Post subject: Re: Restoring LVM after a Hard Drive Failure (no raid) |
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phaedrusdijk "at" hotmail "dot" com wrote:
| Quote: | At the moment, I am running Fedora 8 with 5 physical hard drives (all of
different sizes) but *NOT* using LVM. I have a lot of data spread all over the
place and it is clear that I need to (1) back it all up more often and (2) more
efficiently use the space. So I am setting up a "backup server" using a spare
machine that will sync up to the main server each night. So I am thinking that
since the data will be duped anyway now might be a good time to actually think
about a strategy instead of just flinging drives at the machine every so often.
In reading about LVM it sounds intriguing, but I can't seem to find out what is
involved if a physical drive dies within the volume group. Lots of articles
seem to say you should use raid for redundancy but I pretty much will have a
mirror with the other machine.
If you don't use raid and one hard drive out of 5 in the LVM volume group dies,
is there no way to get the data off of the remaining 4 (ie. does the volume
group just get "corrupting" and that's it)?
My plan was to have the /, swap, and other system directories on 1 small (40gb)
drive outside of the LVM. Then put the other 4 drives (totalling 1.4 TB) into a
LVM group. The "backup server" would be similar with 1 drive out of the LVM for
the system, but 3 drives in an LVM group totalling 1.5 TB.
Wasted space issues aside, is this setting myself up for a major hassle if I
lose a hard drive (hopefully on only one machine at a time!!!)?
Can anyone think of a better solution (with pros and cons)?
Miguel
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Hey,
With no RAID, it is just like when you have one drive, and
you loose it. In an LVM, there is no organization to where your data
really goes so while you could pull /something/ off of the four disks, I
wouldn't count on it being anything you would recognize. I typically
don't use LVM unless I have lots of storage that I need in one container
that I may have to alter it's size. (DBA's are the reason for LVM....).
If anything, I normally set up a hardware RAID mirror for sda/sdb
and either a software/HW RAID $x for the remaining disks. Of course it
really depends on what you need. For LVM on Linux, I am not certain but
you may be able to set up a spare disk if one dies... can't remember for
certain.
JR.
--
Bill will have to take Linux from my cold, dead flippers.
-Tux. |
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