is it possible to use LVM AFTER system installation?

Frédéric Baldit
2026-02-21T17:58:18Z

Hi everybody,

I'm a debian 12 user, running it on a system which was initially
installed without LVM (on a thinkpad laptop)n with classical netinst. My
system is totally installed on a unique nvme disk, with distinct
partitions, among which a /home partition for all my personal data.

I recently installed a second nvme disk (512G capacity). I would like
to extend my /home ext4 partition (which is now exclusively on
/dev/nvme0n1p6, 436G) so that I can keep my old data but have
the possibility to split /home on the initial disk and the second
recently added disk.

This seems to be possible with LVM but only when decided at the
beginning of the installation. Right or wrong?

Or would it possible to:

0) install lvm2 on my system
1) create a new ext4 partition (512G size) on the new nvme disk (using
all available space, 512G, on it)
2) create a new PV with this partition
3) create a new VG containing this unique PV
4) create a new LV on this VG
5) format this LV as an ext4 filesystem with mkfs.ext4
6) mount this LV on a new system directory, say /home1
7) migrate all the data on my old /home to the new /home1
8) modify the VG created before in order to add to it the
/dev/nvme0n1p6 PV
9) resize the LV so that it can use the new PV added
10) rename /home1 to /home

Is this globally correct??? Step 7 if crucial, as I really don't want
any loss or corruption of personal data during the transfer.

Thank's in advance for any help to my two questions,

F. Baldit.

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Frédéric Baldit