Basically, adding and removing LVM will always involves these three logical “layers” which are Physical volumes (pv), Volume groups (vg) and Logical volumes (lv). This post assumed that the Logical volumes haven’t created. In certain situation, linux administrators are required to remove the existing Physical Volume or Volume Group only. It is possible to perform the required task if that system administrator has the right skill on linux. The steps as below :
1. Display the physical volumes and Volume Group using pvdisplay command :
[root@centos63 ~]# pvdisplay --- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sdb1 VG Name vg_data PV Size 4.99 GiB / not usable 2.41 MiB Allocatable yes PE Size 4.00 MiB Total PE 1278 Free PE 1278 Allocated PE 0 PV UUID qTmTeq-8qoL-xxEk-Dj5V-zOjl-vEag-P6Jl7L
2. Remove the Volume Group using vgremove command :
[root@centos63 ~]# vgremove vg_data Volume group "vg_data" successfully removed
3. Remove Physical Volume using pvremove command :
[root@centos63 ~]# pvremove /dev/sdb1 Labels on physical volume "/dev/sdb1" successfully wiped