Partitioning divides a drive into segments, but logical volume management (LVM) allows for fluid partition changes without reformatting. LVM has drawbacks including fragmentation and compromised recovery, making backups important.
Partitioning a drive consists of dividing the drive into several logical segments. A common example used by modern computer manufacturers is creating a “C” drive for basic files and a “D” drive for system recovery files. Logical volume management (LVM) eliminates the concept of partitioning by using the hard drive as intended, as a single drive for data storage.
Think of partition as drawing lines on a map marking a country’s sovereign territory. Once drawn, these lines can be changed, but the process is usually difficult. For partitioned systems, changing the size and composition of partitions requires reformatting, which can be a drastic step. During reformatting, all data stored in the selected partition is erased and the partition is redesigned according to the new specifications.
Logical volume management offers an alternative. On a system using logical volume management, the concept of dividing partitions on a disk becomes much more fluid. On an LVM system, partitions can be merged, combined and resized, all without reformatting the disk space.
This improves the fluency and utility of computer data storage systems. Changing your mind about a data storage scheme to a logical volume management system is easy, and redistributing data doesn’t require erasing the drive and starting. However, logical volume management systems are not without their drawbacks.
The two main disadvantages of logical volume systems are fragmentation and compromised recovery. Files stored on a hard drive are not always stored in one block. More often than not, the computer breaks files into parts and stores each part in the available spaces on the drive. That’s fragmentation: because all the files for a particular program aren’t held together, retrieving those files becomes more difficult, slowing down performance.
Recovery problems occur because data on LVM volumes is so fluid that it becomes much more difficult to reassemble drive information after a crash. This means that while LVM volumes are more fluid, they are also more volatile. As a result, backup solutions become much more important when dealing with LVM systems.
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