PV Capacity Calculator
Calculate total PersistentVolume capacity needed across all cluster claims.
About PV Capacity Calculator
Total PV capacity = sum of all PVC requests plus a buffer for growth. Formula: pool = PVCs × avgSize × (1 + overProvision%). Over-provisioning ensures new claims and volume expansions can be fulfilled without waiting for new storage.
Formula
PV Pool Size
pool = pvcCount × avgSize × (1 + overProvision%)
- pvcCount
- Number of PVCs
- avgSize
- Average PVC size in GB
- overProvision%
- Buffer percentage
Worked example
With the default values below, PV Capacity Calculator returns Recommended PV Pool of 600. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Number of PVCsaccepts 1–100,000 PVCs
- 25 PVCs
- Average PVC Sizeaccepts 1–100,000 GB
- 20 GB
- Over-Provisioning Bufferaccepts 0–100 %
- 20 %
Results
- Recommended PV Pool
- 600 GB
- Total Claimed Capacity
- 500 GB
- Recommended Pool
- 0.59 TB
Step by step
- 1Total claimed capacity= 500GB
- 2With over-provisioning buffer= 600GB (0.59TB)
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 3 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if PV capacity is exhausted?
New PVCs will remain in Pending state until capacity is available. Dynamic provisioners may fail to create volumes, blocking pod scheduling.
Should I use dynamic or static provisioning?
Dynamic provisioning (via StorageClass) is preferred for most workloads — it automatically creates PVs on demand. Static provisioning is useful for pre-existing storage or special performance tiers.