Import volumes

10/15/2025 Contributors

PDFs

You can import existing storage volumes as a Kubernetes PV using tridentctl import.

Overview and considerations

You might import a volume into Trident to:

Containerize an application and reuse its existing data set
Use a clone of a data set for an ephemeral application
Rebuild a failed Kubernetes cluster
Migrate application data during disaster recovery

Considerations

Before importing a volume, review the following considerations.

Trident can import RW (read-write) type ONTAP volumes only. DP (data protection) type volumes are SnapMirror destination volumes. You should break the mirror relationship before importing the volume into Trident.
We suggest importing volumes without active connections. To import an actively-used volume, clone the volume and then perform the import.

This is especially important for block volumes as Kubernetes would be unaware of the previous connection and could easily attach an active volume to a pod. This can result in data corruption.
Though StorageClass must be specified on a PVC, Trident does not use this parameter during import. Storage classes are used during volume creation to select from available pools based on storage characteristics. Because the volume already exists, no pool selection is required during import. Therefore, the import will not fail even if the volume exists on a backend or pool that does not match the storage class specified in the PVC.
The existing volume size is determined and set in the PVC. After the volume is imported by the storage driver, the PV is created with a ClaimRef to the PVC.
- The reclaim policy is initially set to retain in the PV. After Kubernetes successfully binds the PVC and PV, the reclaim policy is updated to match the reclaim policy of the Storage Class.
- If the reclaim policy of the Storage Class is delete, the storage volume will be deleted when the PV is deleted.
By default, Trident manages the PVC and renames the FlexVol volume and LUN on the backend. You can pass the --no-manage flag to import an unmanaged volume. If you use --no-manage, Trident does not perform any additional operations on the PVC or PV for the lifecycle of the objects. The storage volume is not deleted when the PV is deleted and other operations such as volume clone and volume resize are also ignored.

This option is useful if you want to use Kubernetes for containerized workloads but otherwise want to manage the lifecycle of the storage volume outside of Kubernetes.
An annotation is added to the PVC and PV that serves a dual purpose of indicating that the volume was imported and if the PVC and PV are managed. This annotation should not be modified or removed.

Import a volume

You can use tridentctl import to import a volume.

Steps

Create the Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) file (for example, pvc.yaml) that will be used to create the PVC. The PVC file should include name, namespace, accessModes, and storageClassName. Optionally, you can specify unixPermissions in your PVC definition.

The following is an example of a minimum specification:
```
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: my_claim
  namespace: my_namespace
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  storageClassName: my_storage_class
```
Don't include additional parameters such as PV name or volume size. This can cause the import command to fail.
Use the tridentctl import command to specify the name of the Trident backend containing the volume and the name that uniquely identifies the volume on the storage (for example: ONTAP FlexVol, Element Volume, Cloud Volumes Service path). The -f argument is required to specify the path to the PVC file.
```
tridentctl import volume <backendName> <volumeName> -f <path-to-pvc-file>
```

Examples

Review the following volume import examples for supported drivers.

ONTAP NAS and ONTAP NAS FlexGroup

Trident supports volume import using the ontap-nas and ontap-nas-flexgroup drivers.

Trident does not support volume import using the ontap-nas-economy driver.
The ontap-nas and ontap-nas-flexgroup drivers do not allow duplicate volume names.

Each volume created with the ontap-nas driver is a FlexVol volume on the ONTAP cluster. Importing FlexVol volumes with the ontap-nas driver works the same. A FlexVol volumes that already exists on an ONTAP cluster can be imported as a ontap-nas PVC. Similarly, FlexGroup vols can be imported as ontap-nas-flexgroup PVCs.

ONTAP NAS examples

The following show an example of a managed volume and an unmanaged volume import.

Managed volume

The following example imports a volume named managed_volume on a backend named ontap_nas:

tridentctl import volume ontap_nas managed_volume -f <path-to-pvc-file>

+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE   | STORAGE CLASS | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-bf5ad463-afbb-11e9-8d9f-5254004dfdb7 | 1.0 GiB | standard      | file     | c5a6f6a4-b052-423b-80d4-8fb491a14a22 | online | true    |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

Unmanaged volume

When using the --no-manage argument, Trident does not rename the volume.

The following example imports unmanaged_volume on the ontap_nas backend:

tridentctl import volume nas_blog unmanaged_volume -f <path-to-pvc-file> --no-manage

+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE   | STORAGE CLASS | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-df07d542-afbc-11e9-8d9f-5254004dfdb7 | 1.0 GiB | standard      | file     | c5a6f6a4-b052-423b-80d4-8fb491a14a22 | online | false   |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

ONTAP SAN

Trident supports volume import using the ontap-san (iSCSI, NVMe/TCP, and FC) and ontap-san-economy drivers.

Trident can import ONTAP SAN FlexVol volumes that contain a single LUN. This is consistent with the ontap-san driver, which creates a FlexVol volume for each PVC and a LUN within the FlexVol volume. Trident imports the FlexVol volume and associates it with the PVC definition. Trident can import ontap-san-economy volumes that contain multiple LUNs.

ONTAP SAN examples

The following show an example of a managed volume and an unmanaged volume import.

Managed volume

For managed volumes, Trident renames the FlexVol volume to the pvc-<uuid> format and the LUN within the FlexVol volume to lun0.

The following example imports the ontap-san-managed FlexVol volume that is present on the ontap_san_default backend:

tridentctl import volume ontapsan_san_default ontap-san-managed -f pvc-basic-import.yaml -n trident -d

+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE  | STORAGE CLASS | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-d6ee4f54-4e40-4454-92fd-d00fc228d74a | 20 MiB | basic         | block    | cd394786-ddd5-4470-adc3-10c5ce4ca757 | online | true    |
+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

Unmanaged volume

The following example imports unmanaged_example_volume on the ontap_san backend:

tridentctl import volume -n trident san_blog unmanaged_example_volume -f pvc-import.yaml --no-manage
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE   | STORAGE CLASS | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-1fc999c9-ce8c-459c-82e4-ed4380a4b228 | 1.0 GiB | san-blog      | block    | e3275890-7d80-4af6-90cc-c7a0759f555a | online | false   |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

If you have LUNS mapped to igroups that share an IQN with a Kubernetes node IQN, as shown in the following example, you will receive the error: LUN already mapped to initiator(s) in this group. You will need to remove the initiator or unmap the LUN to import the volume.

Image of LUNS mapped to iqn and cluster iqn.

Element

Trident supports NetApp Element software and NetApp HCI volume import using the solidfire-san driver.

The Element driver supports duplicate volume names. However, Trident returns an error if there are duplicate volume names. As a workaround, clone the volume, provide a unique volume name, and import the cloned volume.

Element example

The following example imports an element-managed volume on backend element_default.

tridentctl import volume element_default element-managed -f pvc-basic-import.yaml -n trident -d

+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE  | STORAGE CLASS | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-970ce1ca-2096-4ecd-8545-ac7edc24a8fe | 10 GiB | basic-element | block    | d3ba047a-ea0b-43f9-9c42-e38e58301c49 | online | true    |
+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

Google Cloud Platform

Trident supports volume import using the gcp-cvs driver.

To import a volume backed by the NetApp Cloud Volumes Service in Google Cloud Platform, identify the volume by its volume path. The volume path is the portion of the volume's export path after the :/. For example, if the export path is 10.0.0.1:/adroit-jolly-swift, the volume path is adroit-jolly-swift.

Google Cloud Platform example

The following example imports a gcp-cvs volume on backend gcpcvs_YEppr with the volume path of adroit-jolly-swift.

tridentctl import volume gcpcvs_YEppr adroit-jolly-swift -f <path-to-pvc-file> -n trident

+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE  | STORAGE CLASS | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-a46ccab7-44aa-4433-94b1-e47fc8c0fa55 | 93 GiB | gcp-storage   | file     | e1a6e65b-299e-4568-ad05-4f0a105c888f | online | true    |
+------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

Azure NetApp Files

Trident supports volume import using the azure-netapp-files driver.

To import an Azure NetApp Files volume, identify the volume by its volume path. The volume path is the portion of the volume's export path after the :/. For example, if the mount path is 10.0.0.2:/importvol1, the volume path is importvol1.

Azure NetApp Files example

The following example imports an azure-netapp-files volume on backend azurenetappfiles_40517 with the volume path importvol1.

tridentctl import volume azurenetappfiles_40517 importvol1 -f <path-to-pvc-file> -n trident

+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE   | STORAGE CLASS | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-0ee95d60-fd5c-448d-b505-b72901b3a4ab | 100 GiB | anf-storage   | file     | 1c01274f-d94b-44a3-98a3-04c953c9a51e | online | true    |
+------------------------------------------+---------+---------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

Google Cloud NetApp Volumes

Trident supports volume import using the google-cloud-netapp-volumes driver.

Google Cloud NetApp Volumes example

The following example imports an google-cloud-netapp-volumes volume on backend backend-tbc-gcnv1 with the volume testvoleasiaeast1.

tridentctl import volume backend-tbc-gcnv1 "testvoleasiaeast1" -f < path-to-pvc> -n trident

+------------------------------------------+---------+----------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE   | STORAGE CLASS        | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+---------+----------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-a69cda19-218c-4ca9-a941-aea05dd13dc0 |  10 GiB | gcnv-nfs-sc-identity | file     | 8c18cdf1-0770-4bc0-bcc5-c6295fe6d837 | online | true    |
+------------------------------------------+---------+----------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+

The following example imports a google-cloud-netapp-volumes volume when two volumes are present in the same region:

tridentctl import volume backend-tbc-gcnv1 "projects/123456789100/locations/asia-east1-a/volumes/testvoleasiaeast1" -f <path-to-pvc> -n trident

+------------------------------------------+---------+----------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
|                   NAME                   |  SIZE   | STORAGE CLASS        | PROTOCOL |             BACKEND UUID             | STATE  | MANAGED |
+------------------------------------------+---------+----------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+
| pvc-a69cda19-218c-4ca9-a941-aea05dd13dc0 |  10 GiB | gcnv-nfs-sc-identity | file     | 8c18cdf1-0770-4bc0-bcc5-c6295fe6d837 | online | true    |
+------------------------------------------+---------+----------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+--------+---------+