LVM Limitations

LVM is a sophisticated subsystem. It requires time to learn, it requires maintenance, and in rare cases, things can go wrong.

HP recommends using logical volumes as the preferred method for managing disks. Use LVM on file and application servers. On servers that have only a single disk and are used only to store the operating system and for swap, a “whole-disk” approach is simpler and easier to manage. LVM is not necessary on such systems.

By default, LVM configurations are automatically backed up every time you change them in /etc/lvmconf. Mirroring provides insurance against data loss that is not available under the whole-disk method.

Additional limitations to LVM include the following:

Both LVM disks and non-LVM disks can exist simultaneously on your system, but a given disk or partition must be managed entirely by either LVM or non-LVM methods. That is, you cannot combine these techniques for use with a single disk or partition.
On an HP Integrity server, LVM supports partitioning of the root disk and its mirrors only, and supports only one HP-UX partition on any disk.
Floppy disks, optical disks, and CD-ROMs do not support logical volumes.
You must use an LVM or VERITAS™ Volume Manager (VxVM) disk for your root disk.
To use LVM, a disk must be first initialized into a physical volume.
To be allocatable for storage, a physical volume must be assigned to a volume group.
A physical volume can belong to only one volume group.
The extent size of a volume group is fixed when the volume group is created. It cannot be changed without recreating the volume group.

LVM Limitations

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