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How to connect external storage to Kubernetes (PV/PVC, S3)?

sobes.tech AI

Answer from AI

In Kubernetes, external storage is usually connected using Persistent Volumes (PV) and Persistent Volume Claims (PVC).

Connecting via PV/PVC:

An administrator creates a Persistent Volume that describes a specific storage (e.g., NFS, iSCSI, cloud disk).
A user creates a Persistent Volume Claim — a request for a certain amount and type of storage.
Kubernetes binds the PVC to an appropriate PV and mounts it into a pod.

Example PVC for NFS:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: my-pvc
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteMany
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 10Gi
  storageClassName: ""

Connecting to S3: S3 is an object storage that does not support POSIX file systems directly, so in Kubernetes, special CSI drivers or third-party solutions are used:

Using a CSI driver for S3 (e.g., csi-s3) — allows mounting S3 buckets as volumes.
Using S3 SDK within applications for direct access to objects.
Using tools like MinIO, which provide an S3-compatible interface over block storage.

Thus, for traditional block storage, PV/PVC are used, and for S3, special CSI drivers or direct API access are employed.

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