LVM and RAID

2006-08-09 Linux · Me

With all the nice scripts I have been writing for usenet on linux, I am running out of space all the time on my file server. So soon, I am going to bite the bullet and upgrade my disks.

Currently I am thinking of taking on of my machines which is a sempron, underclocking it and putting in some new disks.

Firstly if I put in 3x320Gb Seagate barracudas I can use Linux to Raid-5 the 3 disks and use LVM to create a big partition that I can add to in the future. My last problem with LVM was that one of my disks stopped working, so I would like to get around that problem as this is going to be the master filestorage for the house. I will use a seperate 120Gb for /boot and a few other partitions for safety.

I also have some external disks (about 1Tb worth) so I will hang these off it aswell for backing up data / pictures and music but it will also give me the opportunity to install another 3 drives in the future with whats left.

Some good points of information I have found are:

http://www.gagme.com/greg/linux/raid-lvm.php

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/96509133/m/435008610831

Once I have done this the other machines will be taken apart. I don’t need an additional 3 servers or want to waste the electricity, but I will probably run VMWare Server on this new machine to have some flexibility. That and a seperate openBSD based firewall / snort box will be my servers for now/future.