Metadata backups and archives are automatically created on every volume group and logical volume configuration change unless disabled in the lvm.conf file. By default, the metadata backup is stored in the /etc/lvm/backup file and the metadata archives are stored in the /etc/lvm/archive file. How long the metadata archives stored in the /etc/lvm/archive file are kept and how many archive files are kept is determined by parameters you can set in the lvm.conf file. A daily system backup should include the contents of the /etc/lvm directory in the backup.

Note that a metadata backup does not back up the user and system data contained in the logical volumes.

You can manually back up the metadata to the /etc/lvm/backup file with the vgcfgbackup command. You can restore metadata with the vgcfgrestore command. The vgcfgbackup and vgcfgrestore commands are described in Section 4.3.12, “Backing Up Volume Group Metadata”.