CKA Storage Practice Question
Which TWO statements about PersistentVolume (PV) reclaim policies are correct?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse Retain with automatic cleanup or think Recycle is still a valid, active policy, when in fact it has been deprecated and removed in recent Kubernetes versions.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Retain: The PV remains in the cluster and must be manually reclaimed.
The Retain reclaim policy leaves the PersistentVolume (PV) in the cluster in a 'Released' state after the PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) is deleted. The underlying storage asset (e.g., an EBS volume or NFS export) is not touched by Kubernetes, and the administrator must manually delete the PV object and then handle the storage asset (e.g., reuse or delete it) outside of Kubernetes.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Retain: The PV remains in the cluster and must be manually reclaimed.
Why this is correct
Retain is correct because the PersistentVolume object remains in the cluster after its PVC is released, transitioning to the Released phase rather than being automatically removed. The underlying storage asset is preserved intact, and an administrator must manually reclaim it, typically by deleting the PV or clearing the claimRef so the volume can be reused under a new claim.
- ✗
Retain: The underlying storage asset is automatically deleted.
Why it's wrong here
Retain does not automatically delete the storage asset; in fact, it deliberately preserves the data on the underlying volume to prevent accidental loss. The PV object persists and the storage remains provisioned until an administrator intervenes, so this option directly contradicts the design and behavior of the Retain reclaim policy.
- ✗
Recycle: The PV is automatically cleaned and made available for a new claim.
Why it's wrong here
The Recycle policy did historically scrub a PV's contents and make it available for a new claim, but this feature has been deprecated and is not recommended for production use in modern Kubernetes. The statement is misleading as a correct option because Recycle is no longer an actively maintained or encouraged reclaim policy, and many providers do not support it at all.
- ✗
Delete: The PV must be manually deleted by the administrator.
Why it's wrong here
Delete is a fully automated reclaim policy: when the PVC is released, the PV object is removed and the underlying storage asset is deleted through the storage provider's API. No administrator action is needed, so the statement claiming that Delete must be manually performed is incorrect and confuses it with Retain.
- ✓
Delete: The PV and the associated storage asset are automatically deleted.
Why this is correct
Delete correctly describes the policy where both the PersistentVolume object and its associated cloud storage asset are automatically removed once the PVC is deleted. This is the default for many dynamic provisioners, such as AWS EBS or GCE PD, and helps ensure that orphaned volumes do not incur ongoing costs.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Kubernetes Architecture Overview
Key term
Volumes
In Kubernetes, a volume is a storage resource that outlives the pod it belongs to, enabling data to persist across container restarts and be shared between containers in the same pod.
Key term
Persistent Volumes
A Persistent Volume is a piece of storage in a Kubernetes cluster that has been provisioned by an administrator and exists independently of any single pod that uses it.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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