Increase space in var mount point

Question

My /var lvm space is full. I have 500 GB space in /dev/sdb filesystem which is already mounted to /mnt/data point and it has data in it.

I want to move some space from /dev/sdb to /var lvm without destroying already present data in /mnt/data.

Answer 1

Since your /var is an LVM logical volume, you could increase its size by using another disk’s space. However, you are using /dev/sdb as an unpartitioned disk. You should:

1. Back up the data from /dev/sdb somewhere,
2. partition your /dev/sdb drive,
3. restore the original data to one partition and mount it as /mnt/data and
4. use another partition as a physical volume which your logical volume /var can utilize.

Alternatively, you can make /mnt/data a logical volume, too. In this case, the physical volume on /dev/sdb could be either a partition or the whole unpartitioned disk. I’d still prefer to create a partition there, even a single one. The partition table does not take much space and the drive will have a more flexible setup – you can see the difference right now.

See also

• How do I add an additional hard drive?
• How can I add a new drive to an existent logical volume?