Debian server: LVM or not?

[technokratos]

Hello, I am trying to setup a small server for my web, mails and RVM with Ruby, gems. I cannot decide if I should use LVM or not as I have one internat 150 GB HDD. Some folks say it's a great thing but only useful if you plan to add new drives (which I don't). Should I use it or not?

If I go with LVM, I plan to create logical volumes for /home, /usr, /var and swap. Could someone please give advice concerning initial size of those volumes?

For reference, I posted this question on serverfault with more details. http://serverfault.com/questions/485...size-under-lvm

Thanks guys for your experience.

[falko]

I'd always use LVM, even if you don't plan to add further drives, because it gives you so much more flexibility. You can even do snapshots - to use this feature you need to leave some free space in your volume group (which is recommended in general because this allows you to create additional volumes if necessary or to resize volumes).

[technokratos]

Thank you, Falko. I'm very glad you gave your professional insight.

Could you please also comment on:
- which LVMs you yourself usually create for server (/home, ...)
- their initial sizes?

I couldn't find any good examples for this.
Thank you very much.

[falko]

Usually an lv for / and one for /var/lib/mysql (so that you can create snapshots) is a good start. 50 - 100 GB for /var/lib/mysql should be more than enough in most cases; for / I'd use a few hundred GB, depending on how many websites and email accounts you plan to host.

[technokratos]

Thank you, Falko. Finally someone with specific advice.
Much appreciated.