In Kubernetes, a volume is storage that persists across the containers within a pod for the lifespan of the pod itself. When a container within the pod is restarted, the data in the Kubernetes volume is preserved. Furthermore, Kubernetes volumes can be shared across containers within the pod, providing a file store that different containers can access locally.

Kubernetes supports a variety of volume types that define how the data is stored and how persistent it is, which are described in detail in the upstream documentation at:

https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/volumes/

Kubernetes volumes typically have a lifetime that matches the lifetime of the pod, and data in a volume persists for as long as the pod using that volume exists. Containers can be restarted within the pod, but the data remains persistent. If the pod is destroyed, the data is usually destroyed with it.

In some cases, you may require even more persistence to ensure the lifecycle of the volume is decoupled from the lifecycle of the pod. Kubernetes introduces the concepts of the PersistentVolume and the PersistentVolumeClaim. PersistentVolumes are similar to Volumes except that they exist independently of a pod. They define how to access a storage resource type, such as NFS or iSCSI. You can configure a PersistentVolumeClaim to make use of the resources available in a PersistentVolume, and the PersistentVolumeClaim will specify the quota and access modes that should be applied to the resource for a consumer. A pod you have created can then make use of the PersistentVolumeClaim to gain access to these resources with the appropriate access modes and size restrictions applied.

For more information about PersistentVolumes, see the upstream documentation at:

https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/persistent-volumes/