Currently I have 3x250 GB drives in my server. (and 1x160GB) I have the os on the 160 and all my data on the 3x250s.

The 250GB are formated XFS so I could get the maximum space out of them. I'm currently running an Oracle DB and have the table spaces mapped across all three.

I'm trying to decide to leave it as is or move it to LVM

My reasons to stay are:
- XFS seems to hold more than ext3
- Knowledge. This is what I'm used to.
- Compatibility. I know how to get at the disks if there is a failure.
- When I upgrade a system I typically move all data to the secondary hard drives and only wipe out the main one. (ie have /home as a symbolic link to /dev/sdb) That way I just have to restore the symbolic links after the reformat is finished. LVM seems dangerous to me in this scenario.

So my questions.

1. Does LVM automatically balance the disks?
2. Does anyone have a cheat sheet I could use in case of failure?
3. Does the Fedora rescue disk know about LVM and can it mount the drive cluster?
4. Anyone have any other advantages to tell me about? Why should I move to LVM?


Just thought I'd get some input before making a final decision.


Thanks.

why do you have it be a symbolic link instead of mounting /dev/sdb to /home?

Not just /home is on /dev/sdb

I typically create /u1 /u2 /u3 /u4 /u5 /u6. Then mount drives to that depending on how many I have. If I need move something from /u2 to /u3 I will then create a symbolic link so applications don't know the difference. (ie /home was on the main drive till it used up too much space. Then I moved it to /u6 where I had more)

Basically accomplishing the same as the LVM, as far as a larger volume.

Sometimes when I'm feeling very nervous at upgrade time I will unplug /u? drives. Then reformat the system.. That way Fedora only knows about the main drive at refresh time. I know paranoid, but when your reformatting a system at 2:00 in the morning better save than sorry.