A single-node minikube cluster on Docker Desktop runs the entire control plane, kubelet, every PVC, every Secret, and the container image cache inside one VM whose disk is one file: ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/data/Docker.raw on macOS. When that file is lost or corrupted, every piece of cluster state goes with it in a single event. There is no “node failure vs storage failure” distinction to design around. Every backup strategy that assumes those are separable does not apply.