5.12.2. Logical Volume Manager (LVM)

Using LVM allows administrators the flexibility to create logical disks that can be expanded dynamically as more disk space is required.

This is done first by creating partitions with as an 0x8e Linux LVM partition type. Then the Physical Partitions are added to a Volume Group and broken up into chunks, or Physical Extents Volume Group. These extends can then be grouped into Logical Volumes. These Logical Volumes then can be formatted just like a physical partition. The big difference is that they can be expanded by adding more extents to them.

Right now, a full discussion of LVM is beyond the scope of this guide. However, and excellent resource for learning more about LVM can be found at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO.html.