File System on HPC Linux Clusters

File Storage:

Home Directory

The /home file system quota is 5 GB. Files can be stored on /home permanently, which makes it an ideal place for your source code and executables. The /home file system is meant for interactive use such as editing and active code development. Do not use /home for batch job I/O.
 

Work (Scratch) Directory

The /work volume meant for the input and output of executing batch jobs and not for long term storage. We expect files to be copied to other locations or deleted in a timely manner, usually within 30-120 days. For performance reasons on all volumes, our policy is to limit the number of files per directory to around 10,000 and total files to about 500,000.

There is no quota is enforced on /work but if it becomes over utilized we will enforce a 30 days purging policy, which means that any files that have not been accessed for the last 30 days will be permanently deleted. An email message will be sent out weekly to users targeted for a purge informing them of their /work utilization.

Please do not try to circumvent the removal process by date changing methods. We expect most files over 30 days old to disappear. If you try to circumvent the purge process, this may lead to access restrictions to the /work volume or the cluster.

Please note that the /work volume is not unlimited. Please limit your usage rate to a reasonable amount. When the utilization of /work is over 80%, a 14 day purge may be performed on users using more than 2 TB or having more than 500,000 files. Should disk space become critically low, all files not accessed in 14 days will be purged or even more drastic measures if needed. Users using the largest portions of the /work volume will be contacted when problems arise and they will be expected to take action to help resolve issues.