---
title: "Delete an Aerospike cluster on Kubernetes"
description: "How to delete an Aerospike cluster on Kubernetes and manage persistent storage retention settings."
---

# Delete an Aerospike cluster on Kubernetes

> For the complete documentation index see: [llms.txt](https://aerospike.com/docs/llms.txt)
> 
> All documentation pages available in markdown.

Delete an Aerospike cluster on Kubernetes by deleting its CR file.

Deleting a cluster causes a complete shutdown of all pods (nodes) in the cluster, which may not be recoverable. When a cluster is deleted, all resources created by AKO for that cluster are permanently lost.

Whether data in a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) is deleted or retained depends on the `cascadeDelete` flag set in the CR. Data persistence also depends on the underlying `storageClass`, which is set by the Kubernetes administrator and is not part of AKO.

::: caution
If you delete the Kubernetes cluster instead of the Aerospike cluster using a cloud provider like AWS, delete persistent storage volumes as a separate step.

Persistent storage volumes are not automatically deleted when you delete the Kubernetes cluster. This protects your persistent storage data, but your cloud provider will continue to charge you for these storage volumes.
:::

## Delete the cluster

Run `kubectl delete` on the CR file:

Terminal window

```shell
kubectl delete -f aerospike-cluster.yaml
```

If you use a local deployment such as [Minikube](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tutorials/kubernetes-basics/create-cluster/cluster-intro/), you can also delete the cluster with `minikube delete`.