David Haller said the following on 04/12/2011 09:04 AM:
Let's say I'd use LVM, what if e.g. /dev/sde shows defects (seen in the SMART data). Can LVM show me what dirs and files(!) I have on the PV(s) on that probably soon-failing drive?
I think you are asking the wrong question. If that drive is failing and and all files in any and all file systems in any and all LVs on any and all PVs on that drive are at risk. You don't need to know the individual file names. Thinking you have to backup/restore or move those files or file systems is "fixed partition" thinking. LVM thinking is tell the LVM system to stop using /dev/sde and to migrate the LVs (and hence the file systems and hence the files) to another PV. This is one reason why experienced users of LVM don't allocate all of the space to start with. We keep some around for snapshots and other contingencies, like this. Yes, you have 'scrap space'. But the thing about LVM is that it does this at a lower level, so you don't have to worry about re-mounting and playing involved games with symlinks, partition tables and such LVM is more KISS than all those fixed size partitions. If you really, really, really need it, LVM has the tools to tell you the mapping of a LV to disk sectors. Other file system tools can tell you what blocks in the file system a file uses. I saw on AIX tools that would tell you the answer to your question as it was posed, but then AIX *only* has LVM. As far as Murphy goes * All Flesh is Grass (Isaiah 40:6) * All Hardware is Rust and Sand * All Software is BitRot But for resilience and flexibility, using LVM beats out using fixed location and fixed size partitions. -- If you lie to the compiler, it will get its revenge. - Henry Spencer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org