Using pre-existing persistent disks as PersistentVolumes

This page explains how to create a PersistentVolume using existing persistent disks populated with data, and how to use the PersistentVolume in a Pod.

Overview

There are two common scenarios which use a pre-existing persistent disk.

The examples in this page use existing Compute Engine persistent disks.

While ext4 is the default filesystem type, you can use a pre-existing persistent disk with the xfs filesystem instead as long as your node image supports it. To use an xfs disk, change spec.csi.fsType to xfs in the PersistentVolume manifest.

Windows does not support the ext4 filesystem type. You must use the NTFS filesystem for Windows Server node pools. To use an NTFS disk, change spec.csi.fsType to NTFS in the PersistentVolume manifest.

Before you begin

Before you start, make sure that you have performed the following tasks:

  • Enable the Google Kubernetes Engine API.
    • Enable Google Kubernetes Engine API
  • If you want to use the Google Cloud CLI for this task, install and then initialize the gcloud CLI. If you previously installed the gcloud CLI, get the latest version by running the gcloud components update command. Earlier gcloud CLI versions might not support running the commands in this document.

Using a PersistentVolumeClaim bound to the PersistentVolume

For a container to access your pre-existing persistent disk, you'll need to do the following:

  1. Provision the existing persistent disk as a PersistentVolume.
  2. Bind the PersistentVolume to a PersistentVolumeClaim.
  3. Give the containers in the Pod access to the PersistentVolume.

Create the PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim

There are several ways to bind a PersistentVolumeClaim to a specific PersistentVolume. For example, the following YAML manifest creates a new PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim, and then binds the volume to the claim using the claimRef defined on the PersistentVolume.

To bind a PersistentVolume to a PersistentVolumeClaim, the storageClassName of the two resources must match, as well as capacity, accessModes, and volumeMode. You can omit the storageClassName, but you must specify "" to prevent Kubernetes from using the default StorageClass.

The storageClassName does not need to refer to an existing StorageClass object. If all you need is to bind the claim to a volume, you can use any name you want. However, if you need extra functionality configured by a StorageClass, like volume resizing, then storageClassName must refer to an existing StorageClass object.

For more details, see the Kubernetes documentation on PersistentVolumes.

  1. Save the following YAML manifest:

    apiVersion:v1
kind:PersistentVolume
metadata:
name:PV_NAME
spec:
storageClassName:"STORAGE_CLASS_NAME"
capacity:
storage:DISK_SIZE
accessModes:
-ReadWriteOnce
claimRef:
name:PV_CLAIM_NAME
namespace:default
csi:
driver:pd.csi.storage.gke.io
volumeHandle:DISK_ID
fsType:FS_TYPE
---
apiVersion:v1
kind:PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
namespace:default
name:PV_CLAIM_NAME
spec:
storageClassName:"STORAGE_CLASS_NAME"
accessModes:
-ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage:DISK_SIZE

    Replace the following:

    • PV_NAME: the name of your new PersistentVolume.
    • STORAGE_CLASS_NAME: the name of your new StorageClass.
    • DISK_SIZE: the size of your pre-existing persistent disk. For example, 500G.
    • PV_CLAIM_NAME: the name of your new PersistentVolumeClaim.
    • DISK_ID: the identifier of your pre-existing persistent disk. The format is projects/{project_id}/zones/{zone_name}/disks/{disk_name} for Zonal persistent disks, or projects/{project_id}/regions/{region_name}/disks/{disk_name} for Regional persistent disks.
    • FS_TYPE: the filesystem type. You can leave this as the default (ext4), or use xfs. If your clusters use a Windows Server node pool, you must change this to NTFS.

  2. To apply the configuration and create the PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim resources, run the following command:

    kubectlapply-fFILE_PATH

    Replace FILE_PATH with the path to the YAML file.

Use the PersistentVolume in a Pod

After you create and bind the PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim, you can give a Pod's containers access to the volume by specifying values in the volumeMounts field.

The following YAML configuration creates a new Pod and a container running an nginx image, and then mounts the PersistentVolume on the Pod:

kind:Pod
apiVersion:v1
metadata:
name:POD_NAME
spec:
volumes:
-name:VOLUME_NAME
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName:PV_CLAIM_NAME
containers:
-name:CONTAINER_NAME
image:nginx
ports:
-containerPort:80
name:"http-server"
volumeMounts:
-mountPath:"/usr/share/nginx/html"
name:VOLUME_NAME

Replace the following:

  • POD_NAME: the name of your new Pod.
  • VOLUME_NAME: the name of the volume.
  • PV_CLAIM_NAME: the name of the PersistentVolumeClaim you created in the previous step.
  • CONTAINER_NAME: the name of your new container.

Apply the configuration:

kubectlapply-fFILE_PATH

Replace FILE_PATH with the path to the YAML file.

To verify that the volume was mounted, run the following command:

kubectldescribepodsPOD_NAME

In the output, check that the PersistentVolumeClaim was mounted:

...
Volumes:
 VOLUME_NAME:
 Type: PersistentVolumeClaim (a reference to a PersistentVolumeClaim in the same namespace)
 ClaimName: PV_CLAIM_NAME
 ReadOnly: false
Events:
 Type Reason Age From Message
 ---- ------ ---- ---- -------
 Normal Scheduled 29s default-scheduler Successfully assigned default/POD_NAME to gke-cluster-1-default-pool-d5cde866-o4g4
 Normal SuccessfulAttachVolume 21s attachdetach-controller AttachVolume.Attach succeeded for volume "PV_NAME"
 Normal Pulling 19s kubelet Pulling image "nginx"
 Normal Pulled 19s kubelet Successfully pulled image "nginx"
 Normal Created 18s kubelet Created container CONTAINER_NAME
 Normal Started 18s kubelet Started container CONTAINER_NAME

Using a pre-existing disk in a StatefulSet

You can use pre-existing Compute Engine persistent disks in a StatefulSet using PersistentVolumes. The StatefulSet automatically generates a PersistentVolumeClaim for each replica. You can predict the names of the generated PersistentVolumeClaims and bind them to the PersistentVolumes using claimRef.

In the following example, you take two pre-existing persistent disks, create PersistentVolumes to use the disks, and then mount the volumes on a StatefulSet with two replicas in the default namespace.

  1. Decide on a name for your new StatefulSet, a name for your PersistentVolumeClaim template, and the number of replicas in the StatefulSet.

  2. Work out the names of the automatically generated PersistentVolumeClaims. The StatefulSet uses the following format for PersistentVolumeClaim names:

    PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME-STATEFULSET_NAME-REPLICA_INDEX

    Replace the following:

    • PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME: the name of your new PersistentVolumeClaim template.
    • STATEFULSET_NAME: the name of your new StatefulSet.
    • REPLICA_INDEX: the index of the StatefulSet's replica. For this example, use 0 and 1.

  3. Create the PersistentVolumes. You must create a PersistentVolume for each replica in the StatefulSet.

    1. Save the following YAML manifest:

      apiVersion:v1
kind:PersistentVolume
metadata:
name:pv-ss-demo-0
spec:
storageClassName:"STORAGE_CLASS_NAME"
capacity:
storage:DISK1_SIZE
accessModes:
-ReadWriteOnce
claimRef:
namespace:default
name:PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME-STATEFULSET_NAME-0
csi:
driver:pd.csi.storage.gke.io
volumeHandle:DISK1_ID
fsType:FS_TYPE
---
apiVersion:v1
kind:PersistentVolume
metadata:
name:pv-ss-demo-1
spec:
storageClassName:"STORAGE_CLASS_NAME"
capacity:
storage:DISK2_SIZE
accessModes:
-ReadWriteOnce
claimRef:
namespace:default
name:PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME-STATEFULSET_NAME-1
csi:
driver:pd.csi.storage.gke.io
volumeHandle:DISK2_ID
fsType:FS_TYPE

      Replace the following:

      • DISK1_SIZE and DISK2_SIZE: the sizes of your pre-existing persistent disks.
      • DISK1_ID and DISK2_ID: the identifiers of your pre-existing persistent disks.
      • PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME-STATEFULSET_NAME-0 and PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME-STATEFULSET_NAME-1: the names of the automatically generated PersistentVolumeClaims in the format defined in the previous step.
      • STORAGE_CLASS_NAME: the name of your StorageClass.

    2. Apply the configuration:

      kubectlapply-fFILE_PATH

      Replace FILE_PATH with the path to the YAML file.

  4. Create a StatefulSet using the values you chose in step 1. Ensure that the storage you specify in the volumeClaimTemplates is less than or equal to the total capacity of your PersistentVolumes.

    1. Save the following YAML manifest:

      apiVersion:apps/v1
kind:StatefulSet
metadata:
name:STATEFULSET_NAME
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app:nginx
serviceName:"nginx"
replicas:2
template:
metadata:
labels:
app:nginx
spec:
terminationGracePeriodSeconds:10
containers:
-name:nginx
image:registry.k8s.io/nginx-slim:0.8
ports:
-containerPort:80
name:web
volumeMounts:
-name:PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME
mountPath:/usr/share/nginx/html
volumeClaimTemplates:
-metadata:
name:PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME
spec:
accessModes:["ReadWriteOnce"]
storageClassName:"STORAGE_CLASS_NAME"
resources:
requests:
storage:100Gi

      Replace the following:

      • STATEFULSET_NAME: the name of your new StatefulSet.
      • PVC_TEMPLATE_NAME: the name of your new PersistentVolumeClaim template.
      • STORAGE_CLASS_NAME: the name of your StorageClass.

    2. Apply the configuration:

      kubectlapply-fFILE_PATH

      Replace FILE_PATH with the path to the YAML file.

What's next

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Last updated 2025年10月14日 UTC.