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Chapter 2. LVM Components
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Figure 2.1. Physical Volume layout
2.1.2. Multiple Partitions on a Disk
LVM allows you to create physical volumes out of disk partitions. It is generally recommended that you
create a single partition that covers the whole disk to label as an LVM physical volume for the following
reasons:
• Administrative convenience
It is easier to keep track of the hardware in a system if each real disk only appears once. This
becomes particularly true if a disk fails. In addition, multiple physical volumes on a single disk may
cause a kernel warning about unknown partition types at boot-up.
• Striping performance
LVM can not tell that two physical volumes are on the same physical disk. If you create a striped
logical volume when two physical volumes are on the same physical disk, the stripes could be on
different partitions on the same disk. This would result in a decrease in performance rather than an
increase.
Although it it is not recommended, there may be specific circumstances when you will need to
divide a disk into separate LVM physical volumes. For example, on a system with few disks it may
be necessary to move data around partitions when you are migrating an existing system to LVM
volumes. Additionally, if you have a very large disk and want to have more than one volume group for
administrative purposes then it is necessary to partition the disk. If you do have a disk with more than
one partition and both of those partitions are in the same volume group, take care to specify which
partitions are to be included in a logical volume when creating striped volumes.
2.2. Volume Groups
Physical volumes are combined into volume groups (VGs). This creates a pool of disk space out of
which logical volumes can be allocated.
Within a volume group, the disk space available for allocation is divided into units of a fixed-size
called extents. An extent is the smallest unit of space that can be allocated, Within a physical volume,
extents are referred to as physical extents.