thin-pool · shipping · also LVM thin pool

Thin pool

In Linux LVM, a shared allocation pool combining separate data and metadata logical volumes to back thin logical volumes and their snapshots.

Data% and Meta% measure different resources. Virtual volume sizes do not reserve pool capacity. The whenfull policy is independent of monitoring and automatic extension; growth requires free volume-group extents. [1] This term describes LVM/dm-thin, not every vendor's pool implementation.

Relations

related

thin-provisioning, thin-pool-metadata, lvm, snapshot, block-storage

Limitations

• Queuing writes while data space is exhausted does not prove successful completion. [2]

Citations

1. LVM2 lvmthin(7): pool components, usage counters and metadata repair (accessed 2026-10-17)
2. Linux v6.12: dm-thin.c, pool modes, timeout, failed metadata operations and resize (accessed 2026-10-17)

Further reading

3. Hesela: Sparse files, preallocation and thin-pool capacity (accessed 2026-10-17)

JSON: /data/terms/thin-pool.json