Docker provides two main mechanisms for persisting and sharing data: named volumes (managed by Docker) and bind mounts (host filesystem paths). Understanding the differences and use-cases helps you choose the right storage strategy for your containers. This guide covers both on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.

Tested and valid on:

  • Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Prerequisites

  • Ubuntu 26.04 LTS with Docker Engine installed
  • A user in the docker group

Step 1 – Named Volumes

docker volume create mydata
docker volume ls
docker volume inspect mydata

Step 2 – Mount a Named Volume

docker run -d --name db 
  -v mydata:/var/lib/mysql 
  -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=rootpass 
  mysql:9

Step 3 – Bind Mounts

Bind mounts map a host directory into the container:

mkdir -p ~/myapp/html
echo '
Hello bind mount!
' > ~/myapp/html/index.html
docker run -d --name webserver 
  -v ~/myapp/html:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro 
  -p 8080:80 nginx:alpine

Step 4 – Read-Only vs Read-Write

# Read-only (ro):
docker run -v /host/data:/app/data:ro myimage
# Read-write (default):
docker run -v /host/data:/app/data myimage

Step 5 – tmpfs Mounts (in-memory)

docker run -d --name tmpapp 
  --mount type=tmpfs,destination=/app/cache 
  nginx:alpine

Step 6 – Backup a Volume

docker run --rm 
  -v mydata:/source:ro 
  -v $(pwd):/backup 
  ubuntu tar czf /backup/mydata-backup.tar.gz -C /source .

Step 7 – Share Volumes Between Containers

docker run -d --name writer -v shared:/data alpine sh -c 'echo hello > /data/msg.txt'
docker run --rm --volumes-from writer alpine cat /data/msg.txt

Conclusion

You can now effectively manage persistent data with Docker volumes and bind mounts on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. Use named volumes for database and application data, and bind mounts for development workflows where you want live file editing.