Clone a Block Volume or a Block Volume Snapshot

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With VAST Block CSI Driver, you can create an instantly writable clone of either a block volume snapshot or another block volume.

When cloning a block volume, a temporary snapshot is created behind the scenes. This transient snapshot is invisible to Kubernetes, and is eventually deleted by VAST Block CSI Driver once the clone operation is complete.

As with regular volumes, VAST CSI Driver automatically creates a view and a quota for the resulting clone volume on the VAST cluster. The clone is mounted to the underlying directory of the view and can be used for read and write operations. It can also be expanded through Kubernetes volume expansion.

Note

Cloning is done using Global Snapshot Clones, a feature of VAST Cluster 4.6.0 and later. For more information about this feature, see VAST Cluster Administrator's Guide.

To clone a block volume from its snapshot:

  1. Create a YAML configuration file for cloning and specify the following required parameters:

    • In metadata:

      • name is the Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) name for the clone.

    • In spec:

      • storageClassName is the name of the storage class used for the PVC.

      • In dataSource:

        • name is the PVC name of the block volume that stores the snapshot from which cloning is done.

    For example:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
    metadata:
      name: pvc-clone
    spec:
      accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
      resources:
        requests:
          storage: 10Gi
      storageClassName: vastdata-filesystem
      dataSource:
        name: snapshot-pvc-1snap
        kind: VolumeSnapshot
        apiGroup: snapshot.storage.k8s.io
  2. Deploy the YAML configuration file:

    kubectl apply -f vast-csi-deployment.yaml

    The output is similar to the following:

    persistentvolumeclaim/pvc-clone created
  3. Verify that the clone can be displayed:

    kubectl get pvc

    The output is similar to the following:

    NAME        STATUS VOLUME                                   CAPACITY ACCESS MODES STORAGECLASS        AGE
    pvc-clone   Bound  pvc-c212dc9e-1b72-49da-8a58-8c1ceb97b9e3 1Gi      RWX          vastdata-filesystem 7s