Volume Snapshots, Expansion, and Cloning

Your Postgres PVC is at 92% capacity and the database is growing faster than you planned. Or you need a point-in-time backup before running a schema migration that you can restore in seconds, not hours. Or QA needs an exact copy of production data in a staging namespace without an export-import dance. Kubernetes handles all three through CSI-driven capabilities: VolumeSnapshots, volume expansion, and PVC cloning.

All three build on the StorageClass and PV/PVC foundations covered in Storage Classes and Persistent Volumes and Claims. They also share a common prerequisite: your CSI driver must explicitly support each capability. Nothing here works with in-tree volume plugins or hostPath volumes.