Forum Discussion
hooleylist
Sep 01, 2009Cirrostratus
I think the restriction of having to keep a 9.x slot to install hotfixes for the 10.x slot is enough to force you to use LVM. It's also nice to be able to run more than two installations using LVM. The downside is that LVM doesn't make for an easy transition to 10.x. I suppose you could keep the standard partitions and install 10 on the second slot. Once you're confident in the 10.x installation, you could wipe the disk and use LVM. Another option which would require less work but be less supported would be to keep one unit on 9.x and the other on 10.x with LVM. I'd try to use hardwire failover exclusively to ensure the standby unit stays in standby (though I haven't tested a 9.x and 10.x mixed pair with network failover, so this is conjecture...). Once you're happy with the 10.x installation, you could upgrade the peer to 10.x with LVM.
I'm sure the upgrade process was difficult for F5 to develop for with the different partitioning schemes. But it would have been really nice to have 9.x support with the LVM so the upgrade to 10.x wouldn't be such a drastic move for customers...
Aaron