[KLUG Members] any experience with Debian Sarge & Dell 39160 SCSI controller?

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> Which version of Debian are you using?  Etch/Sarge?  And are you 
> using an SMP kernel, or just starting with one processor?  From what 
> I have researched so far there seems to be needed kernel support to 
> grow LVM's over hardware RAID.  Sorry to ask details instead of 
> providing answers, but I think these details may affect the answer(s).

The kernel must be able to recognize the additional capacity - and their are
kernel limitations here.  I do not believe that the LINUX kernel supports a
change to drive geometry on a currently in-use drive.  Additional 
capacity must
be added via additional devices.  Of course if you have enough physical 
volumes
you can transfer a logical volume HOT from one set of physical volumes to
another.  Replace or grow the RAID volume, and then migrate it back.  This is
one reason it is handly to keep a big stupid IDE drive installed in a system -
it gives you wiggle room for making snapshots,  quick backups, and a place to
shunt logical volumes off to if you want to diddle with the systems 
real disks.

It is also a good reason to make multiple RAID sets and add them each as a
physical volume to the volume group rather than one big physical volume.

You need an OS like AIX to do this the 'right way'.

-- 
Adam Tauno Williams - http://www.whitemice.org