There are two places to store data: home directories and scratch space. Home directories are backed up nightly and should be used only for critical files. For temporary files, please use the scratch file systems.

Disk space is finite. Users are encouraged to clean up regularly.

Temporary Storage Space for Large- and Short-Term Files

Many supercomputer applications require large amounts of temporary storage for data files on the Institute's UNIX workstations. The SDVL provides the /scratch directory for storage of large temporary files. Researchers are encouraged to use this space on the workstations for large temporary files rather than using space in their home directories. To use it, users create a directory. Files not modified for more than 14 days are automatically removed. Contact the technical support staff (help@msi.umn.edu) for an extension, or to discuss you disk requirements and your disk quotas.

Note that the /scratchdirectory and its subordinate files are not backed up.

Disk Quotas

To effectively manage disk space, the Institute implements a disk quota system. Users are initially allocated 500MB of disk space in the file system containing their home directory. Users should regularly check their quota by typing quota -v. It will produce output similar to the following for the example username george:

Disk quotas for george (uid 999999)
Filesystem usage quota limit timeleft files quota limit timeleft
/home/msi-s1 14993 20000 25000 3090 50000 50000

where the usage values are in kilobytes, and the file values are numbers of files.

You should remove, compress, or write out to tape any files that are not immediately needed. For further information about compressing files, enter man compress or man gzip. If large amounts of temporary storage are needed on the Institute's workstations, use the directory /scratch. There are no restrictions on this space other than that files not modified for more than 14 days are automatically removed. If you need more time, please send email to help@msi.umn.edu asking for more time.

If you need the amount of permanent, backed-up disk space increased, please request that your quota be increased by contacting the technical support staff by sending mail to help@msi.umn.edu. Users can also call technical support personnel at 626-0802.

If you are running a job and the system tells you that your quota limit is exceeded, you should:

1. Abort the process or processes in progress on the file system that has reached its limit
2. Remove enough files to bring the limit back below quota
3. Retry the failed program

This information is available in alternative formats upon request by individuals with disabilities. Please send email to alt-format@msi.umn.edu or call 612-624-0528.

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