[linux-lvm] Removing disks from existing volume with data.

Heinz J . Mauelshagen mauelshagen at sistina.com
Wed Jun 5 08:29:02 UTC 2002


Gunnar,

Because you've got one large LV in VG storage, your only option is to move
as many files over to the new LV in VG s0 as fit, shrink the old filesystem
afterwards and reduce it in order to make a PV free. In case you've got
ext2 in there you can use the LVM e2fsadm command to both shrink the FS
and the LV.
This should be pretty straightforward in case you extended your LV PV by PV,

BTW: "pvdisplay -v" on a PV will tell you, what is allocated there.

Say you figured out 4 piles of files (p1 - p4; each a list of directories
for eg.), commands would be along these lines:

# cd /storage
# find p1 | cpio -pvdm /voltmp
# rm -r p1
# df . # check the free space in the fs for e2fsadm below
# umount /storage
# e2fsadm -L-"free space" /dev/storage/vol0
# vgreduce -a storage # This should tell you, which PV if any is free now
# vgextend so /dev/hdWhichIsFree
# mount /storage

If vgreduce didn't work, check with "pvdisplay -v" what is still allocated
on the devices, move some more files and run e2fsadm again.
Redo with p2, p3, ...

Be prepared that the reduce runs will take some time because of your large
fs size. In case /dev/storage/vol0 is scattered, you might need to
run pvmove after you shrunk the fs and LV.

Regards,
Heinz    -- The LVM Guy --


On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 01:25:57PM +0200, Gunnar Rysstad wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> some months ago I setup a redhat box running kernel 2.4.18 and LVM 1.0.3.
> There were four disks and they we're all included in the LVM-volume I
> created, which gave me a LVM-volume with a total size of ~230gig.
> 
> Since this box didn't have more than two IDE-ports, and I already had 4
> disks in it, I wasn't planning to expand the volume any further. Therefor I
> didn't do anything with 256GB limit in spite of a friends recommendations -
> and now, I just got a IDE controller-card which can take four more devices,
> and I've already got two disks I would like to include in the LVM-volume.
> 
> This is my "old" volume (storage):
> 
> --- Volume group ---
> VG Name               storage
> VG Access             read/write
> VG Status             available/resizable
> VG #                  0
> MAX LV                256
> Cur LV                1
> Open LV               1
> MAX LV Size           255.99 GB
> Max PV                256
> Cur PV                5
> Act PV                5
> VG Size               231.49 GB
> PE Size               4 MB
> Total PE              59261
> Alloc PE / Size       59261 / 231.49 GB
> Free  PE / Size       0 / 0
> VG UUID               I99L5r-trcv-x6Hb-1bKC-O5qf-1Mdy-8Q3G8P
> 
> 
> My devices:
> 
> pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/hde"  of VG "s0"      [74.47 GB / 0 free] (new
> 80gig - currently setup in a new volume)
> 
> The 256G limited volume:
> 
> pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/hdc1" of VG "storage" [41.92 GB / 0 free]
> pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/hdd1" of VG "storage" [42.94 GB / 0 free]
> pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/hda5" of VG "storage" [34.86 GB / 0 free]
> pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/hdb1" of VG "storage" [53.86 GB / 0 free]
> pvscan -- ACTIVE   PV "/dev/hdb2" of VG "storage" [57.91 GB / 0 free]
> 
> pvscan -- total: 6 [306.05 GB] / in use: 6 [306.05 GB] / in no VG: 0 [0]
> (new 80gig included)
> 
> 
> Well, I've heard you cannot change the MAX LV Size on existing volumes,
> therefor I created a new volumegroup with the new 80gig disk, called 's0',
> and a volume called 'vol0'. This time with a 2TB limit:
> 
> --- Volume group ---
> VG Name               s0
> VG Access             read/write
> VG Status             available/resizable
> VG #                  1
> MAX LV                256
> Cur LV                1
> Open LV               1
> MAX LV Size           2 TB
> Max PV                256
> Cur PV                1
> Act PV                1
> VG Size               74.47 GB
> PE Size               32 MB
> Total PE              2383
> Alloc PE / Size       2383 / 74.47 GB
> Free  PE / Size       0 / 0
> VG UUID               gNo0V0-OOKU-teKS-QenZ-I84O-WkHE-Z7ia5t
> 
> 
> What I need to do now is to take out one disk at the time from the old
> volume, and move it to the new one.
> 
> (root at avalon root)# df -h
> Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda2             2.9G  2.3G  639M  79% /
> /dev/hda1              30M  4.1M   26M  14% /boot
> none                  125M     0  125M   0% /dev/shm
> /dev/storage/vol0     228G  164G   64G  72% /storage
> /dev/s0/vol0           73G   62G  9.7G  87% /voltmp
> (root at avalon root)#
> 
> I've moved 62gig from the old volume and over to the new one, so the old
> volume should have enough space to remove one drive/partition. I've searched
> the mailinglist archive and checked a couple of howto's, but all I can find
> information about is how to replace a drive with a new one, not removing one
> completely. "pvmove" seems to be the answer, but I can't really figure how
> to do this, and there's no chance I can take backup of 230Gig.
> 
> How can I move all the content on one of the drives in the volume over to
> the others and make sure the one I want to remove is empty? Do I need to
> shrink the volume first, and then use pvmove?
> 
> I would appreciate if anyone could tell me how to do this, or at least give
> me some hints.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Gunnar Rysstad
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> linux-lvm mailing list
> linux-lvm at sistina.com
> http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://www.sistina.com/lvm/Pages/howto.html

*** Software bugs are stupid.
    Nevertheless it needs not so stupid people to solve them ***

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Heinz Mauelshagen                                 Sistina Software Inc.
Senior Consultant/Developer                       Am Sonnenhang 11
                                                  56242 Marienrachdorf
                                                  Germany
Mauelshagen at Sistina.com                           +49 2626 141200
                                                       FAX 924446
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-




More information about the linux-lvm mailing list