[linux-lvm] failing hard drive
Bryn M. Reeves
breeves at redhat.com
Thu Mar 22 15:54:50 UTC 2007
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Hi Tim,
> It is running Fedora Core 4 (don't ask)
> I want to swap out the drive with a new one (400GB).
> pvmove /dev/hde does not work even though the file system in not full.
> It says there are no free extents (or something like that - I don't want
> to needlessly turn the machine back on since hde is getting worse) I
> guess this is because the underlying stuff is full up.
You're right - it's not the file system being full here, rather it's the
volume group (VG). You can see this by running either:
# vgs
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
VolGroup00 1 2 0 wz--n- 33.81G 32.00M
# vgdisplay
--- Volume group ---
VG Name VolGroup00
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 1
Metadata Sequence No 3
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 2
Open LV 2
Max PV 0
Cur PV 1
Act PV 1
VG Size 33.81 GB
PE Size 32.00 MB
Total PE 1082
Alloc PE / Size 1081 / 33.78 GB
Free PE / Size 1 / 32.00 MB
VG UUID R3OVax-yaLB-4SDX-V05w-BQSM-eKfV-dnLE2P
> It would be nice if I could just dd the failing drive onto the new drive
> and replace it (using linux on a cd) but I have no reason to believe
> this will work - will it?
This should work OK, although as usual with backups you want to make
sure that nothing is writing to the disk while you take the dd - using a
rescue CD would be fine, or deactivating the volume group before
starting (but if it includes your root file system then you will need to
use a rescue CD).
> Has anyone got a step by step guide of what to do? I guess I must shrink
> the filesystem and then whatever that sits on.
That may work, but you'll need to make enough space within the VG to
accommodate all the data that is currently stored on the failing hde.
To do this, you first have to shrink file systems from the VG, then
shrink the logical volumes (LVs) that the file systems are sitting on.
Another option would be to add the new drive to the system and run:
pvcreate /path/to/new/disk
followed by:
vgextend <VG name> /path/to/new/disk
To temporarily bring the VG up to 10 disks to allow you to remove the
failing member. You should then find the "pvmove /dev/hde" works as
expected (assuming the new disk is at least as big as the one you are
replacing).
> This seems to depend on the version of LVM one is running. I have no
> idea what version comes with Fedora Core 4 or how to find out.
You'll have lvm2 in FC4, although it's a relatively old version now.
Kind regards,
Bryn.
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