We covered a brief overview of the various options for containers to store files in the previous blog. Let's discuss in more detail about volumes in this blog.
Volumes are the preferred mechanism for persisting data generated by and used by Docker containers. Volumes are completely created and managed by Docker. Volumes have several advantages over bind mounts:
Volumes are easier to back up or migrate than bind mounts.
You can manage volumes using Docker CLI commands or the Docker API.
Volumes work on both Linux and Windows containers.
Volumes can be more safely shared among multiple containers.
Volume drivers let you store volumes on remote hosts or cloud providers, to encrypt the contents of volumes, or to add other functionality.
New volumes can have their content pre-populated by a container.
Volumes on Docker Desktop have much higher performance than bind mounts from Mac and Windows hosts.
In addition, volumes are often a better choice than persisting data in a container’s writable layer, because a volume doesn’t increase the size of the containers using it, and the volume’s contents exist outside the lifecycle of a given container.
You can create a volume explicitly using the below command, or Docker can create a volume during container or service creation.
docker volume createWhen you create a volume, it is stored within a directory on the Docker host. When you mount the volume into a container, this directory is what is mounted into the container. This is similar to the way that bind mounts work, except that volumes are managed by Docker and are isolated from the core functionality of the host machine.
A given volume can be mounted into multiple containers simultaneously. When no running container is using a volume, the volume is still available to Docker and is not removed automatically. You can remove unused volumes using the below command
docker volume pruneWhen you mount a volume, it may be named or anonymous. Anonymous volumes are not given an explicit name when they are first mounted into a container, so Docker gives them a random name that is guaranteed to be unique within a given Docker host. Besides the name, named and anonymous volumes behave in the same ways.
Volumes also support the use of volume drivers, which allow you to store your data on remote hosts or cloud providers, among other possibilities.
For more information about the usage of volumes, please refer to this official documentation.
Use cases for Volumes -
Sharing data among multiple running containers. If you don’t explicitly create it, a volume is created the first time it is mounted into a container. When that container stops or is removed, the volume still exists. Multiple containers can mount the same volume simultaneously, either read-write or read-only. Volumes are only removed when you explicitly remove them.
When the Docker host is not guaranteed to have a given directory or file structure. Volumes help you decouple the configuration of the Docker host from the container runtime.
When you want to store your container’s data on a remote host or a cloud provider, rather than locally.
When you need to back up, restore, or migrate data from one Docker host to another, volumes are a better choice. You can stop containers using the volume, then back up the volume’s directory (such as /var/lib/docker/volumes/<volume-name>).
When your application requires high-performance I/O on Docker Desktop. Volumes are stored in the Linux VM rather than the host, which means that the reads and writes have much lower latency and higher throughput.
When your application requires fully native file system behavior on Docker Desktop. For example, a database engine requires precise control over disk flushing to guarantee transaction durability. Volumes are stored in the Linux VM and can make these guarantees, whereas bind mounts are remoted to macOS or Windows, where the file systems behave slightly differently.
I hope you found this helpful and informative.
Thank you for reading!
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