[Smaug] To LVM or not to LVM?

[cerise@armory.com]

Those who know me will know that I've long been a proponent of no more
than 2 partitions on linux boxes.  One for root, one for swap.

I am at this moment upgrading a system.  It presently has a 250G hard
drive and I'm adding a 300G hard drive.  This system is a media server
which also acts as a miscellaneous use box.  As a result, the space
required for the system can vary wildly.

What I'd like to do is the thing that LVM does quite well -- merely glue
the new 300G hard drive onto the 250G hard drive.  My problem with LVM
is that it's a hassle for three reasons.  It increases the size of the
kernel drastically, slows disk access, and makes the boot process much
more complex.  That, at least, has been my experience on boogeyman.

While the size of the kernel and speed of disk access aren't things which
inherently harm my normal operations on the box, they bother me and I'd
prefer not to sacrifice more memory or speed than is absolutely necessary.

So, among the things I've considered:
1) Create a separate partition with the base system on it.  Have that as /,
   mount LVM elsewhere, and run a symlink farm.

   I don't like this idea because it increases kernel size and slows disk 
   access to non-essential elements (e.g. my media).  It also has the
   probable circumstance of making some fragment of that disk space difficult
   to get at.
   
2) Run RAID

   While in theory, this can increase speed of access, it will increase
   kernel size and make the boot process more complex (i.e. requiring a
   ramdisk).  Also, since it would be software RAID, it'd probably slow
   access overall.

3) Create a separate partition with the base system and run RAID elsewhere.

   This'll increase kernel size, slow down the typical disk read/write in
   the non-essential areas, make some disk space difficult to get at, and
   require a symlink farm.  The worst of all worlds.

4) Create a symlink farm.

   Doesn't increase kernel size, slow down the typical disk read/write 
   (although it will probably have a very uneven load distribution between
   the two disks), make the boot process more complex, or introduce fragments
   of disk space that are difficult to get at.  It _does_ require constant
   maintenance however and that is annoying.

Of the options, I like 4 the best.  But surely there's something better!

-Phil/CERisE