Summary of Storage Areas
The storage area to use in any given situation depends upon the activity you wish to carry out. Storage areas are either user-centric or project-centric, and are further divided by the underlying storage type (e.g., Network File System (NFS), High Performance Storage System (HPSS), Lustre, IBM Spectrum Scale). Each storage type has a different intended use as described below.
On each system, each user has a User Home area, and may have a User Archive area. Each project has a Project Home area, Work areas, and Archive areas. The different storage areas are summarized in the list and table below.
User Home: Long-term data for routine access that is unrelated to a project. It is mounted on compute nodes as read/write. We strongly recommend that users launch and run jobs from one of the Work file systems due to its larger storage capacity and superior performance.
Project Home: Long-term project data for routine access that’s shared with other project members. It is mounted on compute as read/write. We strongly recommend that users launch and run jobs from one of the Work file systems due to its larger storage capacity and superior performance.
Member Work: Short-term user data for fast, batch-job access that is not shared with other project members.
Project Work: Short-term project data for fast, batch-job access that’s shared with other project members.
World Work: Short-term project data for fast, batch-job access that’s shared with users outside your project.
Member Archive: Long-term project data for archival access that is not shared with other project members.
Project Archive: Long-term project data for archival access that’s shared with other project members.
World Archive: Long-term project data for archival access that’s shared with users outside your project.
User-Shared Applications: User-managed applications shared with all users on the system.
Area |
Path |
Type |
Permissions |
Quota |
Backups |
Purged |
Retention |
On Compute Nodes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
User Home |
|
NFS |
User set |
50 GB |
Yes |
No |
90 days |
Read/Write |
Project Home |
|
NFS |
2770 |
Project Based |
Yes |
No |
90 days |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
GPFS |
User set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Project Work |
|
GPFS |
2770 |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Project World Work |
|
GPFS |
2775 |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
User-Shared Applications |
|
NFS |
0755 |
N/A |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Area |
Path |
Type |
Permissions |
Quota |
Backups |
Purged |
Retention |
On Compute Nodes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
User Home |
|
NFS |
User set |
5 GB |
Yes |
No |
90 days |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
Lustre |
Project set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
User-Shared Applications |
|
NFS |
0755 |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Area |
Path |
Type |
Permissions |
Quota |
Backups |
Purged |
Retention |
On Compute Nodes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
User Home |
|
NFS |
User set |
5 GB |
Yes |
No |
90 days |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
Lustre |
Project set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
User-Shared Applications |
|
NFS |
0755 |
N/A |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Area |
Path |
Type |
Permissions |
Quota |
Backups |
Purged |
Retention |
On Compute Nodes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
User Home |
|
NFS |
User set |
5 GB |
Yes |
No |
90 days |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
Lustre |
Project set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
Lustre |
Project set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
User-Shared Applications |
|
NFS |
0755 |
N/A |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Area |
Path |
Type |
Permissions |
Quota |
Backups |
Purged |
Retention |
AN/PP Nodes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
User Home |
|
NFS |
User set |
10 GB |
Yes |
No |
90 days |
Read/Write |
User Work |
|
NFS |
User set |
10 GB |
Yes |
No |
90 days |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
CXFS |
User set |
Project Based |
No |
Yes |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
NFS |
User set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
NFS |
User set |
Project Based |
No |
Yes |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
Local |
User set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Member Work |
|
NFS |
User set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Member Archive |
|
NFS |
User set |
Project Based |
No |
No |
N/A |
Read/Write |
Important
Files within “Work” directories (i.e., Member Work, Project Work, World Work) are not backed up and are purged on a regular basis according to the time frames listed above.
Notes on User-Centric Data Storage
User Home Directories (NFS)
The environment variable $HOME will always point to your current home
directory. It is recommended, where possible, that you use this variable to
reference your home directory. In cases in which using $HOME is not
feasible, it is recommended that you use /home/$USER (for hera, jet,
niagara, and pan) and ncrc/home/$USER for gaea.
Users should note that since this is an NFS-mounted filesystem, its performance will not be as high as other file systems.
User Home Quotas
Quotas are enforced on user home directories. To request an increased quota,
contact the Help Desk. To view your current quota and usage, use the command
quota on Gaea, Hera, Jet, and Niagara; and homeuse on Pan:
$ quota -Qs
Disk quotas for user userid (uid 12345):
Filesystem space quota limit grace files quota limit grace
ncrc-svm1.ncrc.gov:/ncrc/home2
9228M 51200M 51200M 101k 4295m 4295m
$ quota -Qs
Disk quotas for user userid (uid 12345):
Filesystem space quota limit grace files quota limit grace
10.181.1.1:/home
4147M 0K 5120M 2112 0 0
$ quota -Qs
Disk quotas for user userid (uid 12345):
Filesystem space quota limit grace files quota limit grace
10.181.1.1:/home
4147M 0K 5120M 2112 0 0
$ quota -Qs
Disk quotas for user userid (uid 12345):
Filesystem space quota limit grace files quota limit grace
10.181.1.2:/home_niagara
544K 0K 5120M 23 0 0
$ homeuse
/home & /nbhome usage - 2024.01.16 10:01
GROUP USERNAME FILESYS FILES GB QUOTA USE%
grp userid - /home 447,121 29.80 40 74%
grp userid - /nbhome 113,115 5.34 10 53%
User Home Permissions
The default permissions for user home directories is shown in the Filesystem Summary Table. Users have the ability to change permissions on their home directories, although it is recommended that permissions be set to as restrictive as possible (without interfering with your work).
User Home Backups
If you accidentally delete files from your home directory, you may be able to
retrieve them. Online backups are performed at regular intervals. Hourly
backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the last 7 days, and
once-weekly backups are available. It is possible that the deleted files are
available in one of those backups. The backup directories are named
hourly.*, daily.*, and weekly.* where * is the date/time stamp
of backup creation. For example, hourly.2020-01-01-0905 is an hourly backup
made on January 1st, 2020 at 9:05 AM.
The backups are accessed via the .snapshot subdirectory. Note that ls
alone (or even ls -a) will not show the .snapshot subdirectory exists,
though ls .snapshot will show its contents. The .snapshot feature is
available in any subdirectory of your home directory and will show the online
backups available for that subdirectory.
To retrieve a backup, simply copy it into your desired destination with the
cp command.
User Archive Directories (PAN Only)
The GFDL Archive provides long-term storage for the large amounts of data created on the NOAA compute systems. The mass storage facility consists of tape and disk storage components, servers, and the Data Migration Facility (DMF) software. After data is uploaded, it persists on disk for some period of time. The length of its life on disk is determined by how full the disk caches become.
User archive areas on HPSS are intended for storage of data not immediately needed in either User Home directories (NFS) or User Work directories (GPFS or Lustre). Where available, User Archive directories should not be used to store project-related data. Rather, Project Archive directories should be used for project data.
User Archive Access
Only GFDL users are given a personal archive space. Users are granted HPSS access if they are members of projects with Project Archive areas. GFDL users can transfer data to HPSS from any RDHPCS system using the Princeton DTN, or the Princeton Globus end point.
User Archive Accounting
The GFDL director allocates tape storage to each GFDL group. A group leader may
also set allocations for individuals in the group. These allocations, and the
percent used, are shown by the local archrpt command.
For information on usage and best practices for HPSS, please see the GFDL archive page.
Notes on Project-Centric Data Storage
Project directories provide members of a project with a common place to store code, data, and other files related to their project.
Project Home Directories (NFS)
On some RDHPCS systems, projects are provided with a Project Home storage area in the NFS-mounted filesystem. This area is intended for storage of data, code, and other files that are of interest to all members of a project. Since Project Home is an NFS-mounted filesystem, its performance will not be as high as other file systems.
Note
Data files stored in the project home area on Gaea should only be small files (<100MB). Larger files should be stored in the project work area.
Project Home Path, Quota, and Permissions
The path, quota, and permissions for Project Home directories are summarized in the Filesystem Summary Table.
Quotas are enforced on Project Home directories. To check a Project Home
directory’s usage on gaea, run df -h /ncrc/proj/[projid] (where
[projid] is the project ID). Note, however, that permission settings on
some subdirectories may prevent you from accessing them, and in that case you
will not be able to obtain the correct usage. If this is the case, contact
help@olcf.ornl.gov for the usage information.
Project Home directories are root-owned and are associated with the project’s Unix group. Default permissions are set such that only members of the project can access the directory, and project members are not able to change permissions of the top-level directory.
Project Home Backups
If you accidentally delete files from your project home directory, you may be
able to retrieve them. Online backups are performed at regular intervals.
Hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the last 7 days, and
once-weekly backups are available. It is possible that the deleted files are
available in one of those backups. The backup directories are named
hourly.*, daily.*, and weekly.* where * is the date/time stamp
of backup creation. For example, hourly.2020-01-01-0905 is an hourly backup
made on January 1st, 2020 at 9:05 AM.
The backups are accessed via the .snapshot subdirectory. Note that ls
alone (or even ls -a) will not show the .snapshot subdirectory exists,
though ls .snapshot will show its contents. The .snapshot feature is
available in any subdirectory of your project home directory and will show the
online backups available for that subdirectory.
To retrieve a backup, simply copy it into your desired destination with the
cp command.
Project Work Areas
Project Work Areas to Facilitate Collaboration (Gaea)
To facilitate collaboration among researchers, RDHPCS systems provide distinct types of project-centric work storage areas. Each directory should be used for storing files generated and used by computationally-intensive HPC jobs related to a project.
The difference between the three storage areas lies in the accessibility of the data to project members and to researchers outside of the project. Member Work directories are accessible only by an individual project member by default. Project Work directories are accessible by all project members. World Work directories are potentially readable by any user on the system.
Permissions
UNIX Permissions on each project-centric work storage area differ according to the area’s intended collaborative use. Under this setup, the process of sharing data with other researchers amounts to simply ensuring that the data resides in the proper work directory.
Member Work Directory:
700Project Work Directory:
770World Work Directory:
775
For example, if you have data that must be restricted only to yourself, keep them in your Member Work directory for that project (and leave the default permissions unchanged). If you have data that you intend to share with researchers within your project, keep them in the project’s Project Work directory. If you have data that you intend to share with researchers outside of a project, keep them in the project’s World Work directory.
Backups
Member Work, Project Work, and World Work directories are not backed up. Project members are responsible for backing up these files, either to Project Archive areas (HPSS) or to an off-site location.
Project Archive Directories
Projects may be allocated project-specific archival space on the High Performance Storage System (HPSS) or on the GFDL archive. Each project is given a quota. If a higher quota is needed, contact the appropriate help desk.
Permissions
UNIX Permissions on each project-centric archive storage area differ according to the area’s intended collaborative use. Under this setup, the process of sharing data with other researchers amounts to simply ensuring that the data resides in the proper archive directory.
Member Archive Directory:
700Project Archive Directory:
770World Archive Directory:
775
For example, if you have data that must be restricted only to yourself, keep them in your Member Archive directory for that project (and leave the default permissions unchanged). If you have data that you intend to share with researchers within your project, keep them in the project’s Project Archive directory. If you have data that you intend to share with researchers outside of a project, keep them in the project’s World Archive directory.
Project Archive Access
Project Archive directories stored on HPSS may only be accessed via utilities called HSI and HTAR. For more information on using HSI or HTAR, see the NESCC HPSS page.
Project Archive directories stored on GFDL archive can be accessed from Pan, the GFDL workstations, and using Globus.