Arch Linux

Roken

Member

From: South Wales, UK

Registered: 2012-01-16

Posts: 1,253

LVM conversion

I have a /home partition, and on a separate drive I have a /homeextra.

I'm thinking of combining them into a single logical partition with LVM, and have done my reading re doing that. However, what I can't find is can this be done non-destructively, or am I going to have to find somewhere to backup the partitions to first, then set up the LVM, and copy back?

And yes, I know that conventional wisdom is to backup anyway. Just trying to avoid having to find a backup location if it can be done without.

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Ryzen 5900X 12 core/24 thread - RTX 3090 FE 24 Gb, Asus Prime B450 Plus, 32Gb Corsair DDR4, Cooler Master N300 chassis, 5 HD (1 NvME PCI, 4SSD) + 1 x optical.
Linux user #545703

frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,419

Re: LVM conversion

there is a tool for in-place conversion ( lvmify ) you can find it on github - https://github.com/g2p/blocks

in a german wiki I had once written a guide on how to convert it manually (same principle I guess) - https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Archiv/Howt … inrichten/

in both cases, you need a little free space to make room for LVM metadata (either by growing the partition or shrink the filesystem by a bit)

and it can go horribly wrong, use at your own risk

Roken

Member

From: South Wales, UK

Registered: 2012-01-16

Posts: 1,253

Re: LVM conversion

Thank you.

If I can find a sufficiently roomy external drive amongst my spares, I will of course backup first and then take the nuclear option, but it's nice to know that it can be done if necessary.

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Ryzen 5900X 12 core/24 thread - RTX 3090 FE 24 Gb, Asus Prime B450 Plus, 32Gb Corsair DDR4, Cooler Master N300 chassis, 5 HD (1 NvME PCI, 4SSD) + 1 x optical.
Linux user #545703