[linux-lvm] PE Size and Waste

[Myrddin Emrys <myrddin@gmail.com>]

It appears that one PE can only hold a single file. Since my PE size
is 16MB, that means that the files on my LVM array are... well, less
than efficiently packed. What puzzles me is that this fact is never
mentioned anywhere in the Howto... I see nowhere that mentions the
inefficient file packing, or the need to keep PE size to the minimum
necessary for more efficient storage.

This leads me to wonder if perhaps my situation is anomalous... SHOULD
the system hold more than one file per extant? I originally created an
LVM1 array over a year ago, and formatted it with reiserfs. After
mounting the array on a new computer recently (with a 2.6 kernel) I
upgraded the metadata to LVM2. For the first time I investigated the
seeming lack of space (the major culprit was 2.5GB of small files
[manga] taking up >75GB of space). I read and re-read the available
LVM documentation, but nowhere seems to discuss a limitation of one
file per PE or LE.

Is this a bug with reiserfs? Should I use XFS or perhaps plain ext2?
Perhaps all I need to do is run a command to pack the data, or
reformat reiser with a different parameter?

Thank you for your assistance and insights.