What are the pros and cons of using Named vs Anonymous volumes in Docker for self-hosting?

I’ve always used “regular” Anonymous volumes, and that’s what is usually in official docker-compose.yml examples for various apps:

volumes:
  - ./myAppDataFolder:/data

where myAppDataFolder/ is in the same folder as the docker-compose.yml file.

As a self-hoster I find this neat and tidy; my docker folder has a subfolder for each app. Each app folder has a docker-compose.yml, .env and one or more data-folders. I version-control the compose files, and back up the data folders.

However some apps have docker-compose.yml examples using named volumes:

services:
  mealie:
    volumes:
      - mealie-data:/app/data/
volumes:
  mealie-data:

I had to google documentation https://docs.docker.com/engine/storage/volumes/ to find that the volume is actually called mealie_mealie-data

$ docker volume ls
DRIVER    VOLUME NAME
...
local     mealie_mealie-data

and it is stored in /var/lib/docker/volumes/mealie_mealie-data/_data

$ docker volume inspect mealie_mealie-data
...
  "Mountpoint": "/var/lib/docker/volumes/mealie_mealie-data/_data",
...

I tried googling the why of named volumes, but most answers were talking about things that sounded very enterprise’y, docker swarms, and how all state information should be stored in “the database” so you shouldnt need to ever touch the actual files backing the volume for any container.

So to summarize: Named volumes, why? Or why not? What are your preferences? Given the context that we are self-hosting, and not running huge enterprise clusters.

  • hempster@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    10 hours ago

    I don’t have to deal with a permissions nightmare when using a named volume, it’s seamless and ensures persistence. No more messing around with PUID and PGID. I rarely need to access the files, and when I do, I’m fine sacrificing a bit of convenience. I can still reach them via cd /var/lib/docker/volumes/(Container_Name), and I’ve added a WinSCP shortcut for quick access. Avoiding permission errors is far more valuable for my sanity and time than easy file access.

    • klangcola@reddthat.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Yeah that’s fair, permission issues can be a pain to deal with. Guess I’ve been lucky I haven’t had any significant issues with permissions and docker-containers specifically yet.