Although there's no direct correlation between PVC and Memory limits, you have to consider how linux deals with file caching in memory. By using a PVC, we can infer that your application has frequent file access. if you're seeing that you are constantly maxing out or close-to-max on your memory limit, but you aren't getting OOMKilled, then you're fine. If you're finding you are getting OOMKilled, then you may need to consider the memory needs of the application + overhead for file caching. apps that use mmap to improve file access speeds are most susceptible to this since those cannot be easily reclaimed in memory by the operating system.