5.3 Booting from LVM cache logical volume

The LVM cache logical volume is the logical volume consisting of the original and the cache pool logical volume. The original is usually on a larger and slower storage device while the cache pool is on a smaller and faster one. The performance of the original volume can be improved by storing the frequently used data on the cache pool to utilize the greater performance of faster device.

GRUB boots from LVM cache logical volume merely by reading it’s original logical volume so that dirty data in cache pool volume is disregarded. This is not a problem for "writethrough" cache mode as it ensures that any data written will be stored both on the cache and the origin LV. For the other cache mode "writeback", which delays writing from the cache pool back to the origin LV to boost performance, GRUB may fail to boot in the wake of accidental power outage due to it’s inability to assemble the cache device for reading the required dirty data left behind. The situation will be improved after adding full support to the LVM cache logical volume in the future.