Question

How can I use a pre-existing disk as a persistent volume for a GKE cluster?

Answer 1

If you already have a persistent disk (say named pd-name), the manifest file below describes a corresponding PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim that you cluster can use.

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: pv-demo
spec:
  storageClassName: ""
  capacity:
    storage: 500G
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  gcePersistentDisk:
    pdName: pd-name
    fsType: ext4
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: pv-claim-demo
spec:
  # It's necessary to specify "" as the storageClassName
  # so that the default storage class won't be used, see
  # https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/persistent-volumes/#class-1
  storageClassName: ""
  volumeName: pv-demo
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 500G

Use kubectl apply -f existing-pd.yaml to create the PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim.