Named Volumes — The Right Default for State

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Named volumes are Docker-managed storage

You give them a name. Docker stores them under /var/lib/docker/volumes/<name>/_data. They live independently of any container — survive docker rm, survive image rebuilds, only disappear when you explicitly delete them.

Code

Volume CRUD·bash

# Create explicitly (optional — auto-created on first use)
docker volume create pgdata

# List
docker volume ls

# Inspect (where it lives, options, labels)
docker volume inspect pgdata

# Remove (only when no container uses it)
docker volume rm pgdata

# Remove all unused volumes (ASK YOURSELF FIRST)
docker volume prune

Postgres survives container deletion·bash

# First container
docker run -d --name db \
  -v pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  postgres:16

# Insert data
docker exec -it db psql -U postgres -c "CREATE TABLE t(x int); INSERT INTO t VALUES(7);"

# Tear down completely
docker rm -f db

# Recreate
docker run -d --name db \
  -v pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  postgres:16

# Verify
docker exec -it db psql -U postgres -c "SELECT * FROM t;"
# x | 7  ← still there

External links

Postgres on Docker Hub (data dir is /var/lib/postgresql/data)

Exercise

Create three named volumes for a typical web stack: app-pgdata, app-redisdata, app-uploads. Run a Postgres, a Redis, and a stub web container that writes a file to /app/uploads/test.txt. Tear them all down with docker rm -f, recreate with the same volumes, and verify everything is intact.

Progress

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← PreviousThree Storage Types — Volumes, Bind Mounts, tmpfs Next →Bind Mounts — The Dev Loop Trick

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