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I am planning to replace my motherboard to get one with additional functionality. I currently have a volume group that spans multiple physical HDD. I plan to use the same o/s disk/config (just shut down, swap mother board, reboot).

Am I in danger of breaking the volume group and loosing the data since the device name may change? If so, what can be done to keep the data (other than the obvious back it up).

edit: adding background history. This is my first experience with any flavor of Linux. My o/s experience is in VMS where physical device name is significant. I started this PC project to learn a new o/s (a retirement project). My concern is that since the devices are SATA connected, the port they connect to on the motherboard seems to control their device id (SDA, SDB, etc). So, I was concerned that if the way I connected the HDD so the motherboard might cause them to get a different device ID. If that happened, I am fearful that it would break the logical volume that spans multiple physical HDD. If the logical volume is made of SDA, SDB and SDC on the current system. Would the volume still mount and be intact if the same physical HDDs became SDC, SDE and SDF (as an example) or if the disk that is SDA on the current motherboard becomes SDB on the new motherboard. Would the change in device ID cause the logical volume to break.

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    How is this related to Ubuntu? What is the "volume group"?
    – Pilot6
    Jan 16, 2023 at 15:15
  • Ubuntu is the o/s. I assume replacing the motherboard might cause the o/s to assign a different device name to the hdds. I am thinking that the device name is key to the multiple disk volume group, The volume group is made of three physical hdd
    – SkiBum
    Jan 16, 2023 at 15:19
  • How is the group made?
    – Pilot6
    Jan 16, 2023 at 15:20
  • So you're not making any changes to your fstab?
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Jan 16, 2023 at 15:21
  • 1
    Why would anyone downvote this question and put it up for close vote review? This is a good question.
    – karel
    Jan 17, 2023 at 12:32

1 Answer 1

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You have very little to fear.

This is not a windows hardware upgrade. (No one is going to sabotage you in fear of piracy)

Generally speaking, volumes are denoted by uuids. If you are using 'dev/sdx' directly, those items might get reshuffled and have to be retargeted. Volume labels, or partition labels aren't a problem as long as they're unique. The only thing that is at risk is whether (if you use more than one storage device) your preferred HDD/SSD is the boot device. And that needs to be resolved in EFI/BIOS.

Once you get the system to boot, everything will show up where it ought to, as long as all the storage devices are powered on and supported by the kernel/drivers (you're not switched distros while you change motherboards, are you?)

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  • I don't plan to make any o/s changes (kernel/driver/etc). The only h/w change will be the motherboard. Thanks for the reply!!! It is helpful.
    – SkiBum
    Jan 16, 2023 at 19:14
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    I replaced the motherboard today. I was very careful to plug the SATA drives into the same slots as there were on the previous board (just to be safe). System booted and the logical volumes were intact as they were on the previous motherboard. To be safe, I had done a backup of all the critical data on the drive before hand, but it was not needed. Thanks for the assistance.
    – SkiBum
    Jan 20, 2023 at 6:02

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