Kubernetes Storage: PVs, PVCs, StorageClasses, and CSI Drivers Explained Kubernetes was designed for stateless workloads, and it shows. Running databases, message queues, or any stateful application on Kubernetes requires understanding the storage abstraction layer - PersistentVolumes, PersistentVolumeClaims, StorageClasses, and CSI drivers - which confuses even experienced engineers. The concepts are not complicated individually, but the way they interact creates a system that is easy to misconfigure. A PersistentVolume (PV) represents a piece of storage in the cluster. A PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) is a request for storage by a pod. A StorageClass defines how storage is dynamically provisioned - which CSI driver to use, what type of disk (gp3, io2, sc1 on AWS), and reclaim policy (delete or retain). In practice, you define StorageClasses once per cluster, and developers create PVCs in their deployments.…