LVM (Logical Volume Manager)
Hacker ApprovedVolume manager in Computers
Free Linux volume manager that makes resizing storage and taking snapshots easy. Critics say it only checksums metadata, not data, and lacks ZFS features.
Free Linux volume manager that makes resizing storage and taking snapshots easy. Critics say it only checksums metadata, not data, and lacks ZFS features.
28 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Snapshots for backups and forensics
“You could use LVM or btrfs snapshots (at the filesystem level) if you're ok restarting your database between runs”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Instant database clones with PostgreSQL 18” “LVM has benefits, e.g. snapshots for backups, debugging and forensics.”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead” “Not a big problem to make snapshots with lvm or zfs and others.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Cowork: Claude Code for the rest of your work” Flexible, easy storage resizing
“We have a script that basically slowly expands volume when demand grows, up to a limit.”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Running Out of Disk Space in Production” “With LVM, if you get it wrong you just resize the LV and the filesystem it contains.”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead” “It's really not hard to setup LVM and Samba.”
Comment from 30 Aug 2026 in “FreeCORE TrueNAS Core – Continued” - Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “LVM Thin Provisioning (2016)”
Standard tool for sysadmin storage
“I use LVM on all my non-appliance Linux systems, both servers and desktops.”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead” “LVM for a *nix sysadmin is cheat mode for managing storage.”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead” “just use LVM or other dynamic volume management”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Running Out of Disk Space in Production” - Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead”
Combines RAID, volumes and filesystem
“xfs/lvm-raid10 or ext4/lvm-raid10, obviously.”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” “how it unifies lvm, RAID, and the filesystem”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Ripgrep is faster than {grep, ag, Git grep, ucg, pt, sift}”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Snapshots can become invalid or unrecoverable
“The docs were terrible, almost as bad as MDADM. snapshots were for a long time unrecoverable.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS” “If a snapshot reaches 100% of its allocated space, it will become invalid.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS” Older design, more limits than ZFS
“Conventional LVM was pretty old and really designed for a different time.”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Oracle’s 6am layoff emails hit staff amid new wave of cuts” “much heavier limitations and far more inconvenience than ZFS”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User” Poor docs and layout recovery
“None of the Linux bare metal backup systems I've tested have been able to recover exactly same disk layouts, usually LVM part is poorly done.”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Installing and using HP-UX 9” “The docs were terrible, almost as bad as MDADM. snapshots were for a long time unrecoverable.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS”
What people said
27 of the 32 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“xfs/lvm-raid10 or ext4/lvm-raid10, obviously.”
“Conventional LVM was pretty old and really designed for a different time.”
“I use LVM on all my non-appliance Linux systems, both servers and desktops.”
“LVM and swapfiles both work well if you just create one large”
“With LVM, if you get it wrong you just resize the LV and the filesystem it contains.”
“LVM for a *nix sysadmin is cheat mode for managing storage.”
“LVM has benefits, e.g. snapshots for backups, debugging and forensics.”
“Stop using partitions. Use LVM!”
“For FDE I prefer LVM-over-LUKS and a dedicate partition”
“It's really not hard to setup LVM and Samba.”
“systemd -> cryptsetup -> lvm2 -> udev -> systemd”
“If a snapshot reaches 100% of its allocated space, it will become invalid.”
“If you use LVM you can have a similar pool of storage with 1GB RAM or even less”
“The docs were terrible, almost as bad as MDADM. snapshots were for a long time unrecoverable.”
“just use LVM or other dynamic volume management”
“We have a script that basically slowly expands volume when demand grows, up to a limit.”
“You can add LVM to get snapshots, but this still not an end-to-end copy-on-write solution”
“lvm only supports checksums for metadata. It does not checksum the data itself.”
“It's old unsexy tech, but losing data is not to my taste lately”
“how it unifies lvm, RAID, and the filesystem”
“use ZFS or LVM + XFS on your machine”
“there's no comparison, it's damn easier and clearer”
“much heavier limitations and far more inconvenience than ZFS”
“Not a big problem to make snapshots with lvm or zfs and others.”
“regular LVM is a beautiful and easy process”
“You could use LVM or btrfs snapshots (at the filesystem level) if you're ok restarting your database between runs”
“None of the Linux bare metal backup systems I've tested have been able to recover exactly same disk layouts, usually LVM part is poorly done.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.