How can I recover my PostgreSQL data in Kubernetes after a node restart?

If the PV is still intact, you might consider defining a PVC independently instead of having a claim directly within your StatefulSet. You can directly specify the `volumeName` of your PV in your new PVC. Keep in mind, that could involve a bit of manual work. You might want to look into CloudNativePG as well; it has several custom resource definitions (CRDs) to handle cluster definitions, image configurations, backups, and more, which could save you some effort in the long run.

I wonder if you’ve updated to version 18, as it has a different folder structure. It's worth checking if a minor update of version 17 happened after your data was created. That could potentially explain the data loss.

Just a heads-up, I found a solution for my issue. The real problem was mounting the path `/var/lib/postgresql`, which caused PostgreSQL to create a temporary data directory. Fortunately, I had backups and mounted the disk in another VM (in read-only mode) to access the container's overlay filesystem. That's where I found my data.

Did you delete the StatefulSet or the PVC at any point? If that's the case, your old PV might be orphaned and you'd need to reattach it to a new PVC to access your data properly.

How exactly did you restart the nodes? Since you have backups, restoring your database shouldn't be too difficult; you can use the `psql` command for that.