Be able to create PVs, PVCs, and StorageClasses, bind them correctly, and mount them in pods. The critical skill is diagnosing why a PVC stays Pending or a volume fails to mount by reading kubectl describe, events, and matching capacity, access modes, and storageClassName.
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Domain overview
The Storage domain covers how Kubernetes provisions, binds, mounts, and reclaims persistent data for workloads. You are tested through hands-on tasks: creating PersistentVolumes and PersistentVolumeClaims, defining StorageClasses with access modes and reclaim policies, attaching volumes to pods, and diagnosing Pending or mount-failure states with kubectl describe and events.
Exam objectives
Creating and binding PersistentVolumeClaims to PersistentVolumes with correct capacity, access modes, and storageClassName
Configuring StorageClasses for dynamic provisioning, reclaimPolicy, volumeBindingMode, and CSI provisioner references
Mounting PVC-backed volumes into pods and troubleshooting MountVolume.SetUp failed or Pending PVC errors
Choosing StatefulSet volumeClaimTemplates for per-pod dedicated storage that scales dynamically
Assuming a Pending PVC is always a provisioning failure; often no matching PV exists, storageClassName is wrong, or capacity/access modes do not match.
Forgetting that a PVC with no storageClassName may be left unbound when no default StorageClass exists or when the field is explicitly empty.
Editing a bound PVC's capacity or access modes directly instead of resizing through the StorageClass or recreating the claim.
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A DevOps team needs to provide persistent storage to a set of pods that all require read-write access to the same data simultaneously. Which volume type should they use?
2A pod is unable to start because the PersistentVolumeClaim it references is still in 'Pending' state. What is the most likely cause?
3A cluster administrator needs to provide storage to a pod that must read and write files, but the data does not need to persist beyond the pod's lifecycle. Which volume type should be used?
4A team is designing a storage solution for a Cassandra cluster on Kubernetes. Each pod must have its own dedicated storage, and the cluster must be able to scale up and down dynamically. Which Kubernetes resource should be used to manage the storage?
5A cluster uses a CSI driver for dynamic provisioning. An administrator creates a StorageClass with 'volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer' and a PVC. The pod using the PVC is scheduled to a node. However, the PV is never provisioned. What is the most likely cause?
6A developer wants to mount a ConfigMap as a volume in a pod. However, the pod should only see specific keys from the ConfigMap, not all keys. What is the best approach?
7Which TWO statements about PersistentVolume (PV) reclaim policies are correct?
8A DevOps team needs to deploy a stateful application that requires persistent storage with ReadWriteMany access mode across multiple pods running on different nodes. Which Kubernetes resource should they use to provision the storage?
9A pod is configured to use a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC). The PVC is bound to a PersistentVolume (PV) that uses a cloud disk. The pod fails to start with the error 'MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume ... mount failed: exit status 32'. What is the most likely cause?
10Refer to the exhibit. A pod is defined with an emptyDir volume using memory medium. The pod is scheduled on a node with 4 GB of RAM. The container writes 3 GB of data to /cache. What will happen?
11You are a cluster administrator managing a production Kubernetes cluster that hosts a stateful application using StatefulSets with PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) backed by a cloud provider's persistent disk. A developer reports that a new pod in the StatefulSet is stuck in 'Pending' state. You describe the StatefulSet and see that it has 3 replicas. Two pods are Running, but the third pod (pod-2) is Pending. You check the PVC for pod-2 and see it is 'Pending'. The StorageClass uses 'WaitForFirstConsumer' volume binding mode. The node where pod-2 should run has sufficient resources. Other PVCs in the same namespace bound successfully. What is the most likely cause of the pending PVC and pod?
12A DevOps team is deploying a stateful application that requires persistent storage with ReadWriteMany access mode across multiple pods running on different nodes in a Kubernetes cluster. Which storage solution should they choose to meet this requirement?
13A developer accidentally runs 'kubectl delete pvc data-claim'. What is the immediate effect on the PersistentVolume pv-data?
14An application requires a persistent volume that can be shared across multiple Pods running on different nodes, with read-write access from all Pods simultaneously. Which access mode should be specified in the PersistentVolumeClaim?
15An administrator needs to create a PersistentVolume with 10Gi capacity, ReadWriteOnce access mode, and a reclaim policy of Retain. Which YAML snippet correctly defines this PV?
16A PersistentVolumeClaim named 'my-pvc' is created and remains in 'Pending' state. Which command should the administrator use to investigate the reason?
17An administrator runs 'kubectl get pvc' and sees a PVC with status 'Lost'. What does this status indicate?
18A pod needs to share data between two containers during their lifecycle, but the data does not need to persist after the pod is deleted. Which volume type is most appropriate?
19A new StorageClass 'fast' is created with volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer. A PVC using this StorageClass is created but no pod consumes it. What is the state of the PVC immediately after creation?
20An administrator applies the following YAML: --- apiVersion: v1 kind: PersistentVolumeClaim metadata: name: my-pvc spec: accessModes: - ReadWriteOnce resources: requests: storage: 5Gi storageClassName: "" --- What does setting storageClassName to an empty string achieve?
21A PersistentVolume is created with the following spec: persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain claimRef: namespace: default name: my-pvc After the PVC 'my-pvc' is deleted, what happens to the PV?
22Which access mode allows multiple pods running on different nodes to read from and write to a PersistentVolume at the same time?
23What does the 'volumeMode: Block' setting in a PersistentVolume spec indicate?
24Which TWO of the following are valid reclaim policies for PersistentVolumes?
25Which TWO of the following are required for dynamic provisioning of PersistentVolumes using a StorageClass?
26Which THREE of the following are true about the interaction between PersistentVolumeClaims and pods?
27Which of the following is a valid command to create a PersistentVolume named 'pv-demo' using a YAML manifest file named 'pv.yaml'?
28A cluster administrator wants to provide storage for an application that requires reading and writing by multiple pods simultaneously. The storage backend is an NFS server that supports multiple writers. Which access mode should be specified in the PersistentVolume?
29Which reclaim policy will cause the underlying storage to be deleted when the associated PersistentVolume is released from a PersistentVolumeClaim?
30A StatefulSet named 'web' uses volumeClaimTemplates to dynamically provision PersistentVolumeClaims for each replica. The cluster runs on AWS with the EBS CSI driver. How many PersistentVolumeClaims will be created if the StatefulSet has 3 replicas and the volumeClaimTemplates specify a single template?
31An administrator needs to expand a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) that is currently bound to a PersistentVolume (PV). The PV is provisioned by a storage class that supports volume expansion. What must the administrator do to increase the PVC's storage size?
32Which of the following volume types is designed to store sensitive information such as passwords or tokens?
33A user creates a PersistentVolumeClaim with a storage class 'ssd' that does not exist in the cluster. What will happen when the PVC is created?
34A CSI driver is installed in the cluster, but a PersistentVolumeClaim using a StorageClass that references this driver remains Pending. The administrator checks the logs of the CSI controller pod and sees no errors. What is a possible cause?
35Which of the following commands will list all PersistentVolumeClaims in a cluster?
36Which TWO of the following are valid access modes for a PersistentVolume in Kubernetes? (Select two.)
37Which TWO of the following statements about StorageClass are correct? (Select two.)
38A StorageClass named 'fast-ssd' uses the provisioner 'kubernetes.io/gce-pd' and has volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer. A PVC 'my-pvc' requests 100Gi storage from this StorageClass. A pod using the PVC is scheduled to a node in zone 'us-central1-a'. When is the PV provisioned?
39A StatefulSet named 'web' uses volumeClaimTemplates to create a PVC named 'data' with storage class 'ssd'. The StatefulSet has 3 replicas. After scaling down to 2 replicas, what happens to the PVC of the third pod (web-2)?
40Which access mode allows a PersistentVolume to be mounted as read-write by multiple pods across different nodes?
41An administrator creates a PersistentVolume named 'pv-nfs' with a reclaim policy of 'Retain'. After a user deletes the PVC bound to this PV, what state does the PV enter?
42A pod uses a PersistentVolumeClaim named 'claim-log'. The PVC is pending. You run 'kubectl describe pvc claim-log' and see the event: 'waiting for a volume to be created, either by external provisioner or manually'. The StorageClass 'standard' has provisioner: 'kubernetes.io/no-provisioner'. What is the most likely cause?
43Which CSI driver feature must be supported by the driver to allow expanding a PVC while the pod using it is still running?
44Which volume type is typically used to share configuration data with a pod as files, where the data is stored in the cluster as a resource?
45A pod uses a PVC with access mode RWO. The pod is scheduled on node A. You want to schedule another pod on node B that uses the same PVC. What will happen?
46You need to allow a pod to use a specific device from the host node (e.g., /dev/sdb) as a raw block device. Which volume mode should you set in the PVC?
47A developer creates a PVC with storageClassName: "" (empty string). What does this mean?
48Which resource type is used to define a template for dynamically provisioning PersistentVolumes?
49Which TWO of the following are valid reclaim policies for a PersistentVolume? (Select TWO)
50Which THREE of the following are correct about using a hostPath volume in Kubernetes? (Select THREE)
51Which TWO of the following are required fields in a PersistentVolumeClaim spec? (Select TWO)
52A pod is using a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) named 'mypvc' which is bound to a PersistentVolume (PV) with reclaim policy 'Retain'. The pod is deleted and then the PVC is deleted. What happens to the PV?
53Which access mode allows multiple pods on different nodes to mount a PersistentVolume as read-write?
54You create a StorageClass with volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer. A PVC using this StorageClass is created but remains in 'Pending' state. The PVC expects a node with label 'disktype=ssd'. A suitable node exists. What is the MOST likely reason the PVC is still Pending?
55Which of the following volume types provides ephemeral storage that shares the pod's lifecycle and is initially empty?
56A StatefulSet named 'web' uses volumeClaimTemplates to create PVCs for each replica. You scale the StatefulSet from 3 to 5 replicas. What happens to the PVCs?
57A developer creates a YAML manifest for a pod that uses a PersistentVolumeClaim. The PVC requests 5Gi of storage but the only available PV has 10Gi. What will happen when the pod is created?
58You want to dynamically provision storage for a PVC using a StorageClass named 'fast-ssd'. Which field in the PVC YAML specifies the StorageClass?
59A cluster has a CSI driver installed. A pod using a CSI volume is in CrashLoopBackOff. 'kubectl describe pod' shows: 'failed to mount volume: rpc error: code = DeadlineExceeded desc = context deadline exceeded'. What is the MOST likely cause?
60Which of the following is a required field when defining a PersistentVolume?
61What is the default reclaim policy for a PersistentVolume?
62You have a PVC that is bound to a PV with a filesystem volume mode. You want to use the volume as a block device in a pod. What should you do?
63Which THREE of the following are true about expanding a PersistentVolumeClaim?
64Which access mode allows multiple pods to read and write to a PersistentVolume simultaneously when all pods are on the same node?
65A cluster administrator creates a PersistentVolume with the following YAML: apiVersion: v1 kind: PersistentVolume metadata: name: pv-example spec: capacity: storage: 1Gi accessModes: - ReadWriteOnce persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain hostPath: path: /data/pv A user creates a PersistentVolumeClaim requesting 500Mi with access mode ReadWriteOnce and no storage class. The PVC remains in Pending state. What is the most likely cause?
66A cluster administrator is configuring a Pod to use a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) that is dynamically provisioned using a StorageClass with volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer. The PVC is created before the Pod. When the Pod is created, which node will the PV be provisioned on?
67A cluster administrator wants to expand an existing PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) that is bound to a PersistentVolume (PV) with reclaim policy Delete and storage class 'fast'. The PV was dynamically provisioned. Which condition is required for the PVC expansion to succeed?
68Which volume type in Kubernetes allows a Pod to share data between its containers, with the data being deleted when the Pod is removed?
69A cluster administrator creates a StorageClass with the following YAML: apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1 kind: StorageClass metadata: name: fast provisioner: kubernetes.io/aws-ebs parameters: type: gp2 reclaimPolicy: Delete volumeBindingMode: Immediate A developer creates a PVC using this StorageClass. The PVC is created and remains in Pending state. What is the most likely cause?
70A cluster administrator needs to create a PersistentVolume that can be mounted as a block device (not a filesystem) by a Pod. Which field in the PersistentVolume spec must be set to enable this?
71Which of the following is a valid CSI (Container Storage Interface) driver operation in Kubernetes?
72A cluster has a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) named 'data-claim' bound to a PersistentVolume (PV) with reclaim policy 'Retain'. The PVC is deleted. The PV now shows status 'Released'. What must be done so that the PV can be reused by a new PVC?
73A Pod is configured with a volume that uses a ConfigMap. The ConfigMap is updated after the Pod is running. How can the Pod access the updated data without restarting?
74Which TWO of the following are valid reclaim policies for a PersistentVolume?
75Which THREE of the following are characteristics of a StatefulSet's volumeClaimTemplates?
76Which TWO of the following are valid volumeBindingMode values for a StorageClass?
77An administrator creates a PersistentVolume with the following YAML: ```yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: PersistentVolume metadata: name: pv-example spec: capacity: storage: 5Gi accessModes: - ReadWriteOnce persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain hostPath: path: /mnt/data ``` Which of the following is true about this PersistentVolume?
78An administrator needs to configure dynamic provisioning for persistent volumes using an external CSI driver. Which of the following is the correct approach?
79Which TWO statements about emptyDir volumes are correct?
80Which THREE statements about PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) are correct?
81Which THREE statements about StorageClasses are true?
82An administrator needs to expand an existing PersistentVolumeClaim. Which TWO conditions must be met?
83An administrator is preparing a StorageClass for a stateful application. The cluster's default StorageClass uses immediate binding, which causes PersistentVolumes to be provisioned before the consuming Pod is scheduled. The administrator wants volumes to be provisioned only after the scheduler has selected a node, so that topology-aware constraints (such as zone-local disks) can be honored. Which change to the StorageClass should the administrator make?
84A cluster administrator manages a PersistentVolume with reclaim policy Retain that was bound to a PersistentVolumeClaim. The application team deletes the PVC, but the administrator later needs to reuse the same underlying storage for a new PVC in the same namespace. After the PVC deletion, the PV shows status Released. Which sequence of actions must the administrator perform to make the PV bindable again?
Be able to create PVs, PVCs, and StorageClasses, bind them correctly, and mount them in pods. The critical skill is diagnosing why a PVC stays Pending or a volume fails to mount by reading kubectl describe, events, and matching capacity, access modes, and storageClassName.
The Courseiva CKA question bank contains 84 questions in the Storage domain, covering the 10% of the exam attributed to this domain in the official CNCF blueprint. Click any question to see the full explanation and answer breakdown.
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