Resizing File Systems; Guidelines For Resizing; File Systems That Support Resizing; Increasing The Size Of A File System - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 - STORAGE ADMINISTRATION GUIDE 2-23-2010 Administration Manual

Resizing File Systems

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When your data needs grow for a volume, you might need to increase the amount of space allocated
to its file system.
Section 5.1, "Guidelines for Resizing," on page 35
Section 5.2, "Increasing an Ext2 or Ext3 File System," on page 36
Section 5.3, "Increasing the Size of a Reiser File System," on page 37
Section 5.4, "Decreasing the Size of an Ext2 or Ext3 File System," on page 37
Section 5.5, "Decreasing the Size of a Reiser File System," on page 38

5.1 Guidelines for Resizing

Resizing any partition or file system involves some risks that can potentially result in losing data.
WARNING: To avoid data loss, make sure to back up your data before you begin any resizing task.
Consider the following guidelines when planning to resize a file system.
Section 5.1.1, "File Systems that Support Resizing," on page 35
Section 5.1.2, "Increasing the Size of a File System," on page 35
Section 5.1.3, "Decreasing the Size of a File System," on page 36

5.1.1 File Systems that Support Resizing

The file system must support resizing in order to take advantage of increases in available space for
®
the volume. In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, file system resizing utilities are available for file
systems Ext2, Ext3, and ReiserFS. The utilities support increasing and decreasing the size as
follows:
File System Support for Resizing
Table 5-1
File System
Ext2
Ext3
ReiserFS

5.1.2 Increasing the Size of a File System

You can grow a file system to the maximum space available on the device, or specify an exact size.
Make sure to grow the size of the device or logical volume before you attempt to increase the size of
the file system.
Utility
resize2fs
resize2fs
resize_reiserfs
Increase Size (Grow)
Yes, offline only
Yes, online or offline
Yes, online or offline
Decrease Size (Shrink)
Yes, offline only
Yes, online or offline
Yes, offline only
Resizing File Systems
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