Backup and Restore FADA Volumes

Backup Kubernetes applications that mount PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) provisioned with FADA (pure_block) volumes. This topic outlines the prerequisites and supported backup locations such as NFS, Amazon S3, and Azure Blob for backing up these workloads. This feature supports compatibility with multiple Kubernetes platforms, both manual and scheduled backup workflows, and cross-cluster restore capabilities with appropriate Portworx configuration.

This section guides you through backing up applications that mount PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) provisioned with FADA (pure_block) storage using Portworx Backup.

Portworx Backup handles FADA volume types effectively, using native Portworx snapshots (PXD-based) for both block and file system PVC modes. KDMP-based backups are only supported for PVCs in file system mode.

Prerequisites

• An application up and running with FADA volume mounted to it

• Add the following parameter in kdmp-config ConfigMap (in kube-system namespace) on all the application clusters:

  ENABLE_PX_FADA_BACKUP: true

  This flag enables Portworx Backup to back up FADA-backed PVCs (volumes provisioned using pure_block). If this parameter is not set to true, FADA filesystem and block volume backups will use the CSI driver mechanism for backup and restore operations. When set to true, backups will use the CloudSnap mechanism, which relies on Portworx Enterprise snapshots.

• Portworx Enterprise 3.4.0 and above

• Stork version 25.3.1 and above

• FADA StorageClass and PVC

FADA backup support matrix

Category	Detail
Backup Location	- NFS - S3 - Azure Blob
Application cluster	- OpenShift - Vanilla Kubernetes - On-prem K8s
Backup type	- Manual Backup - Scheduled Backup
Backup variants	- Portworx Native (PXD-based) PVC Modes: Filesystem, Block - KDMP Backup PVC Mode: Filesystem
Restore	- To any PX-installed cluster - Requires pure_block StorageClass
Large Resource Restore	- Supported
VM Backup Support	- Works if VM mounts FADA volume
Object Lock Support	- Supported
Parallel Backup Schedules	-Supported
Local Snapshot Restore	- Supported

Backup FADA volumes

Refer the following topics to back up FADA volumes on various backup locations:

• Back up with S3
• Cross-cloud backup
• Back up with NFS
• CSI backup with PXD driver

Restore FADA volumes

Refer to the Restore section to restore FADA volume backups.