Painless Docker - 2nd Edition

What is a Docker Volume?

In Docker, a volume is the preferred mechanism for persisting data generated by and used by Docker containers. While containers are ephemeral, volumes exist independently of the container lifecycle.

Volumes are stored in a part of the host filesystem that is managed by Docker (usually /var/lib/docker/volumes/ on Linux). When you mount a volume, this directory is linked into the container. A volume has the following characteristics:

• It's persisted on the host filesystem.
• It can be shared and reused among multiple containers.
• It can be managed using Docker CLI commands.