Skip to main content
Two of the three storage backends consume storage that lives outside the supervisor’s nodes: NFS mounts an export from a NAS, and Fibre Channel (HSPC) carves volumes dynamically on a Hitachi VSP array. Both are tabs on the wizard’s Storage step; both report through the standard component status model.
If your FC array is meant to be capacity rather than a data-services endpoint, consider feeding its LUNs to Ceph instead — the san device class keeps the array out of the runtime path entirely. HSPC is the right choice when each volume should be a first-class array object.

​
NFS

The NFS tab installs the CSI NFS driver (csi-driver-nfs, in kube-system) and creates a StorageClass per export: The driver installs once; StorageClasses are applied independently, so you can save a class, smoke-test it, adjust, and re-apply without reinstalling anything. Multiple exports become multiple classes on the same driver.

​
The test PVC

Test PVC provisions a small throwaway claim against the class, waits for it to bind, and deletes it. On failure it returns the claim’s events — the actual mount.nfs, DNS, or firewall error from the provisioner — so a misconfigured server or an unreachable export is diagnosed in the panel, not in kubectl. Run it after every apply; an NFS class that binds the smoke-test claim will bind real workloads.

​
Status and orphans

The NFS status carries the driver’s HelmRelease block plus every NFS StorageClass with its server and share. Before anything is installed the shape is minimal and honest:
A StorageClass whose driver release is missing or not ready is flagged orphan: it looks valid, PVCs can reference it, and nothing will ever bind. The panel offers deletion for orphan classes — the one StorageClass delete operation in the product, deliberately scoped to NFS orphans.

​
Fibre Channel — Hitachi HSPC

The Fibre Channel tab deploys the Hitachi Storage Plug-in for Containers as an operator: a HelmRelease installs the HSPC operator, the backend then applies the HSPC resource that makes the operator deploy the CSI controller and per-node driver, a credentials Secret, and the hspc-fc StorageClass. Each PVC becomes an LDEV carved from a DP pool on the array and masked to the node that mounts it.

​
Discover, then install

Discover logs into the array’s management API with the address and credentials you enter and returns what you would otherwise hand-type:
  • the array model, serial, and device ID;
  • every DP pool with its status, capacity, and used rate — statuses are color-classified so a full or blocked pool is visibly not a candidate;
  • every FC port with its WWN, speed, and whether it is a target port.
Pick a pool and the ports; the form fills itself. The install fields:
The array fields are optional per apply: submitting with them blank installs just the operator, so you can stage the driver before the array is reachable and wire the credentials later.

​
Status

The FC status reports four independent facts, in dependency order: the operator HelmRelease, whether the HSPC resource is applied, whether the driver is ready (the CSI controller is actually available — the fact the wizard counts toward storage readiness), and whether the credentials Secret is configured, plus the resulting StorageClass and the round-tripped desired config.

​
Multipath is load-bearing

On dual-path nodes HSPC requires working kernel multipath — the dm_multipath module loaded and a multipath configuration present, not just a multipath daemon. Without it the two paths to an LDEV stay two separate devices, the driver formats one of them, and the first mount fails with a remote I/O error. Verify path health on the Infrastructure page — FC ports Online, LUNs showing their expected path count — before creating the first PVC.

​
What commonly goes wrong

​
Permissions

Array discovery is intentionally gated as an install-family action — it authenticates against the array with admin credentials, not a read-only view.

Rook-Ceph

The alternative for FC arrays — LUNs as Ceph OSDs, array out of the runtime path.

Classes & profiles

What NFS and FC classes can and cannot back — access modes, volume modes, clone strategy.

Infrastructure & nodes

FC port state and the SAN LUN multipath picture per node.

Storage overview

Choosing between the three backends.