Portworx Enterprise StorageClass

Portworx Enterprise uses standard Kubernetes StorageClass resources with a set of PX-specific parameters for FlashArray and FlashBlade backend storage.

Example of StorageClass

The following is an example of a StorageClass configuration in Portworx Enterprise.

kind: StorageClass
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
    name: elasticsearch-sc
provisioner: kubernetes.io/portworx-volume
parameters:
  io_priority: high
  repl: "2"
  group: "amq_vg"
allowVolumeExpansion: true

StorageClass Fields

Using Storage Classes objects, an admin can define the different classes of Portworx Volumes that are offered in a cluster. The following table lists the fields in a StorageClass.

Field	Description	Type
apiVersion	The Kubernetes API version for the StorageClass object.	string
kind	The kind of Kubernetes object. This value is always StorageClass.	string
metadata.name	The name of the StorageClass.	string
provisioner	Specifies the CSI driver used for dynamic provisioning. For PX-CSI, use pxd.portworx.com.	string
reclaimPolicy	Defines what happens to a volume when it's released from its claim. Options are Delete or Retain. See the Kubernetes documentation.	string
volumeBindingMode	Controls when volume binding and dynamic provisioning occur. Options are Immediate or WaitForFirstConsumer. See the Kubernetes documentation.	string
allowVolumeExpansion	Specifies whether the volume can be dynamically resized.	boolean
mountOptions	A list of mount options supported by the backend. Common examples: nfsvers=3, tcp, nfsvers=4.1.	array
parameters	Portworx Enterprise-specific configuration parameters. See below for details.	object

parameters fields

Name	Description	Example
fs	Specifies a filesystem to be laid out: xfs|ext4. Note: The only preferred and default filesystem across all backends is ext4. The default backend can also support xfs.	fs: "ext4"
repl	Specifies the replication factor for the volume: 1|2|3	repl: "3"
sharedv4	Creates a globally shared namespace volume which can be used by multiple pods over NFS with POSIX compliant semantics	sharedv4: "true"
sharedv4_svc_type	Indicates the mechanism Kubernetes will use for locating your sharedv4 volume. If you use this flag and there's a failover of the nodes running your sharedv4 volume, you no longer need to restart your pods. Possible values are: ClusterIP or LoadBalancer.	sharedv4_svc_type: "ClusterIP"
sharedv4_failover_strategy	Specifies how aggressively to fail over to a new server for a Sharedv4 or Sharedv4 Service volume (Valid Values: aggressive, normal). The default failover strategy for sharedv4 service volumes is aggressive, because these volumes are able to fail over without restarting all the application pods. For more information, see Sharedv4 failover and failover strategy.	sharedv4_failover_strategy: "normal"
priority_io	Specifies IO Priority: low|medium|high. The default is low	priority_io: "high"
io_profile	Overrides I/O algorithm that Portworx uses for a volume. For more information about IO profiles, see the IO profiles section of the documentation.	io_profile: "db_remote"
group	Specifies the group a volume should belong too. Portworx restricts replication sets of volumes of the same group on different nodes. If the force group option 'fg' is set to true, the volume group rule is strictly enforced. By default, it's not strictly enforced.	group: "volgroup1"
fg	Enforces volume group policy. If a volume belonging to a group cannot find nodes for its replication sets which don't have other volumes of the same group, the volume creation will fail.	fg: "true"
label	Arbitrary key: value labels that can be applied on a volume	label: "name: mypxvol"
nodes	Specifies comma-separated Portworx Node IDs to use for replication sets of the volume	nodes: "minion1,minion2"
ephemeral	Creates the ephemeral volumes	ephemeral: false
size	Specifies a volume size in GB (default 1)	size: "1073741824"
block_size	Specifies a block size in Bytes (default 4096)	block_size: "4096"
queue_depth	Specifies a block device queue depth. (Valid Range: [1 256]) (default 128)	queue_depth: 128
snap_interval	Specifies an interval in minutes at which periodic snapshots will be triggered. Set to 0 to disable snapshots
snap_schedule	Specifies the name of the snapshot schedule policy created using the pxctl sched-policy command	Refer to this page for examples
zones	Specify comma-separated zone names in which the volume replicas should be distributed
racks	Specify comma-separated rack names in which the volume replicas should be distributed
async_io	Enables asynchronous IO processing on the backend drives and could be useful in situations where the workload profile is bursty in nature. Please reach out to Portworx Support before enabling.	async_io: false
csi_mount_options	Specifies the mounting options for a volume through CSI
sharedv4_mount_options	Specifies a comma-separated list of Sharedv4 NFS client mount options provided as key=value pairs
proxy_endpoint	Specifies the endpoint address of the external NFS share Portworx is proxying	proxy_endpoint: "nfs://<nfs-share-endpoint>"
proxy_nfs_subpath	Specifies the sub-path from the NFS share to which this proxy volume has access to
proxy_nfs_exportpath	Exports path for NFS proxy volume	proxy_nfs_exportpath: "/<mount-path>"
export_options	Defines the export options. Currently, only NFS export options are supported for Sharedv4 volumes
mount_options	Specifies the mounting options for a volume when it is attached and mounted
best_effort_location_provisioning	Requested nodes, zones, racks are optional
direct_io	Enables Direct IO on a volume	direct_io: "true"
scan_policy_trigger	Specifies the trigger point on which filesystem check is triggered. Valid Values: none, on_mount, on_next_mount
scan_policy_action	Specifies a filesystem scan action to be taken when triggered. Valid Values: none, scan_only, scan_repair
force_unsupported_fs_type	Forces a filesystem type that is not supported. The driver may still refuse to use the type	force_unsupported_fs_type: false
match_src_vol_provision	Provisions the restore volume on the same pools as the source volume (src volume must exist)
nodiscard	Mounts the volume with nodiscard option. This is useful when the volume undergoes a large amount of block discards and later the application rewrites to these discarded block making the discard work done by Portworx useless. This option must be used along with auto_fstrim. Refer to this page for limitations on xfs formatted volumes.	nodiscard: false
auto_fstrim	Enables auto_fstrim on a volume and requires the nodiscard option to be set. Refer to this page for more details.	auto_fstrim: true
storagepolicy	Creates a volume on the Portworx cluster that follows the specified set of specs/rules. Refer this page for more details.
backend	Specifies which storage backend Portworx is going to provide direct access to. (Valid Values: pure_block, pure_file)	backend: "pure_block"
pure_export_rules	Specifies the export rules for exporting a Pure Flashblade volume	pure_export_rules: "*(rw)"
io_throttle_rd_iops	Specifies maximum Read IOPs a volume will be throttled to. Refer to this page for more details.	io_throttle_rd_iops: "1024"
io_throttle_wr_iops	Specifies maximum Write IOPs a volume will be throttled to. Refer to this page for more details.	io_throttle_wr_iops: "1024"
io_throttle_rd_bw	Specifies maximum Read bandwidth a volume will be throttled to. Refer to this page for more details.	io_throttle_rd_bw: "10"
io_throttle_wr_bw	Specifies maximum Write bandwidth a volume will be throttled to. Refer to this page for more details.	io_throttle_wr_bw: "10"
aggregation_level	Specifies the number of replication sets the volume can be aggregated from	aggregation_level: "2"
sticky	Creates sticky volumes that cannot be deleted until the flag is disabled	sticky: "true"
journal	Indicates if you want to use journal device for the volume's data. This will use the journal device that you used when installing Portworx. This is useful to absorb frequent syncs from short bursty workloads. Default: false	journal: "true"
secure	Creates an encrypted volume. For details about how you can create encrypted volumes, see the Create encrypted PVCs page.	secure: "true"
placement_strategy	Flag to refer the name of the VolumePlacementStrategy. For example: apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1 kind: StorageClass metadata:  name: postgres-storage-class provisioner: pxd.portworx.com parameters:  placement_strategy: "postgres-volume-affinity" For details about how to create and use VolumePlacementStrategy, see this page.	placement_strategy: "postgres-volume-affinity"
snapshotschedule.stork.libopenstorage.org	Creates scheduled snapshots with Stork. For example: snapshotschedule.stork.libopenstorage.org/default-schedule:   schedulePolicyName: daily   annotations:     portworx/snapshot-type: local snapshotschedule.stork.libopenstorage.org weekly-schedule:   schedulePolicyName: weekly   annotations:     portworx/snapshot-type: cloud     portworx/cloud-cred-id: <credential-uuid> NOTE:This example references two schedules: The default-schedule backs up volumes to the local Portworx cluster daily. The weekly-schedule backs up volumes to cloud storage every week. For details about how you can create scheduled snapshots with Stork, see the Scheduled snapshots page.

CSI Enabled Storage Classes

Portworx provides a set of preconfigured CSI-enabled StorageClass objects to support common deployment scenarios, such as high availability, performance tuning, and replication. These StorageClasses simplify dynamic provisioning of volumes using the CSI driver.

To use the CSI driver with a custom or existing StorageClass, set the provisioner field to pxd.portworx.com.

The following is an example of a CSI enabled StorageClass configuration in Portworx Enterprise.

kind: StorageClass
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: fio-fa-da-sc
provisioner: pxd.portworx.com
parameters:
  backend: "pure_block"
  max_iops: "1000"
  max_bandwidth: "1G"
  fs: "ext4"
volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer
allowVolumeExpansion: true

For more information on the fields in the StorageClass, see StorageClass Fields. For more information on supported StorageClass parameters, see Parameters Fields.

Defaults created by Portworx Enterprise

Portworx automatically deploys the following default CSI enabled StorageClass objects during installation:

StorageClass	Purpose
px-csi-db	Default database‑optimized StorageClass. Creates low‑latency, HA Portworx volumes (replicated across nodes) using a DB‑friendly IO profile.
px-csi-db-encrypted	Encrypted database‑optimized volumes. Same as px-csi-db, but with Portworx volume encryption turned on for workloads that require at‑rest encryption without tying in snapshot policies.
px-csi-db-cloud-snapshot	Database‑optimized volumes with cloud‑snapshot capability. Same as px-csi-db, but preconfigured to be used with Portworx cloud snapshots.
px-csi-db-cloud-snapshot-encrypted	Encrypted, cloud‑snapshot‑ready DB volumes. Same behavior as px-csi-db-cloud-snapshot, but with Portworx encryption at rest enabled on the volumes.
px-csi-db-local-snapshot	Database‑optimized volumes with local‑snapshot capability. Same as px-csi-db, but intended for use with Portworx local snapshots on the cluster.
px-csi-db-local-snapshot-encrypted	Encrypted DB volumes with local‑snapshot capability. Combines px-csi-db-local-snapshot behavior with Portworx encryption at rest for secure, locally protected database workloads.
px-csi-replicated	General‑purpose replicated StorageClass. Creates HA Portworx volumes replicated across nodes, suitable as the cluster‑wide default for most workloads (including VMs/KubeVirt where used).
px-csi-replicated-encrypted	Encrypted, general‑purpose replicated volumes. Same as px-csi-replicated but with Portworx encryption at rest enabled, for non‑DB workloads that still need HA and encryption.

To view available StorageClass objects, run the following command:

kubectl get sc