How to store data in external drive with Docker Postgres 9 3 image

Question

I want to setup my database inside a container using the Postgres:9.3 docker image, however I want to store my data in external drive.

I attempted it using the command

`docker run -dit -p 5432:5432 -v /mnt/external/docker_volume:/var/lib/postgresql/data --name mydatabase postgres:9.3`

Container got created as it echoes the container id, but it is not shown as running from docker ps. The above command works for other images. The images has VOLUME defined in its dockerfile but I haven't figure out a way to get around it.  Can somebody help me?

Answer 1

Apparently, the problem would be in your  /mnt/external/docker_volume. It was not empty and the Postgres init script didn't like it. Found this out after running with -it option and saw the output in terminal.