Unionfs/aufs instead of LVM?

[Omri Schwarz]

I thought I'd ask if 
anyone else is thinking of this: merging disks and partitions at the
filesystem level rather than the block device level.

The advantages that come to mind:

- If a disk is lost, only the files belonging to it are lost,
instead of the whole logical volume.

- Copying a component volume to another one is easier, and can
be done without any outage to the filesystem at large.

- Portions of the filesystem can be backed up instantly by
mandating for example that /home belong to two component
filesystems that are simple copies of each other.

- Facile interface for snapshots.

- Component filesystems that can be set read-only.

Disadvantages:

Getting unionfs/aufs to DTRT in this context.


Omri Schwarz --- ocschwar at mit.edu
Timeless wisdom of biomedical engineering: "Noise is principally
due to the presence of the patient." -- R.F. Farr