[linux-lvm] Removing a physical volume.

[Andreas Dilger]

On Dec 28, 2001  22:27 +0100, Anders Widman wrote:
> This is my current setup:
> 
> 14 physical disks in one logical volume (share) formated with reiserfs,
> in one volumegroup (server). There are no free physical extents, though
> there are about 150GB free space in the filesystem.
> I want to remove one physical disk and have all data moved over to the
> remaining disks.

You need to run resize_reiserfs (on the unmounted filesystem) to reduce the
size of the filesystem by _at_least_ the size of the disk you want to
remove.  Then, after the filesystem is shrunk, you run lvreduce to reduce
the size of the LV.  Shrink the LV no more than you shrunk the filesystem
or you will have problems*.

After this, you need to run "pvmove -v <pv>" to remove any PEs that are
in use on this disk to other disks.  You should have enough free PEs at
this point because you reduced the size of the LV enough to remove the disk.
Finally, run "vgreduce <pv>" to remove the (now unused) PV from the VG and
you are set.`

Cheers, Andreas

(*) Normally, what I would do is overshrink the fs, shrink the LV
    conservatively, then expand the fs to fill the rest of the LV again.
--
Andreas Dilger
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2resize/
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/