For a project I need storage. I already have a storage server with about 8TB space, divided over two controllers. At this moment it's a bit hard to say how the project will go and if more space is needed, but it probably will be, so I want to set things up in a way now so that I won't regret it later. Once this all starts basically the server should never be down anymore. What I have in mind is to use LVM to create a volume that can grow later on with external san storage. That way from what I've seen I should be able to add that external storage to the lvm volume later on without having to take the server down. At this moment unfortunately there's no money for a backup storage server. Basically I'm worried about the following things: - The LVM will span over multiple raids, with each having hot swaps, so unless two disks in one array die at the same time, I guess I should be fine. But what if one array fails for whatever reason? Is part of the volume just not available and for the rest it will work? Or if it happens to be the part that holds the filesystem itself I'm totally screwed? - If the storage server itself would break down and has to be replaced or I have to reinstall the OS, but all the arrays would still be fine, is there some way to restore the LVM the way it was? Don't have that much experience with storage methods and solutions, so any thoughts and ideas are of course welcome
You mean both disks of the array die at the same time? I've never had that, so I can only guess, but I think that a part of the volume will just not be available. Not sure, but I think you can somehow restore it with the vgscan, pvscan, and lvscan commands.
