Storage Policy
The full storage policy that every user agrees to when they apply for an account can be found on the website. http://www.nccs.gov/wp-content/accounts/nccs_storage_policy.pdf
This current page shows a summary of the storage policy. It also discusses some of the changes with respect to archival storage (HPSS) and its quotas.
Introduction
The following policies apply to all projects with allocations on the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) systems. The policies apply equally to all projects regardless of the machine on which they have time.
Storage Policy Summary Table
| Area | Actual Location | Quota | Purge Policy | Retention Policy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Directory | /ccs/home/$USER | 5GB | - | 1 month from the date your account is deactivated |
| NFS Project | /ccs/proj/[projectid] | 50GB | - | 1 month from the date the project is deactivated |
| Lustre Project | /tmp/proj/[projectid] | 1TB | - | 1 month from the date the project is deactivated |
| Primary Scratch | /tmp/work/[username] | - | Files older than/last accessed 14 days are subject to being swept | - |
| Local Scratch | varies | varies | Files older than/last accessed 14 days are subject to being swept | - |
| HPSS Home | /home/[username] | 2TB/2,000 Files | - | 3 months from the date your account is deactivated |
| HPSS Project | /proj/[projectid] | 45TB/4,500 Files | - | 3 months from the date the project is deactivated |
- Area
- - the type of storage discussed in the storage policy.
- Actual Location
- - the absolute path to the storage area.
- Quota
- - the limits placed on total amount of bytes stored and total number of files stored.
- Purge Policy
- - states when data will be marked as eligible for deletion.
- Retention Policy
- - states when data will be marked as eligible for deletion after a project or user account is deactivated.
Storage Policy Implementation
NFS home directories and project directories have quotas enabled on them preventing users from exceeding their specified quotas. The most noticeable change is in archival storage (HPSS).
HPSS Quotas
We plan to use soft quotas for HPSS. You will receive an email notifying you that you have exceeded your limits when we notice usage exceeding the specified limits. The email will ask you to clean up the storage area to get you below your limits.
We are strongly encouraging users to associate their files with projects as opposed to their individual user account. This helps us understand project needs and usage. Information on modifying an account associated with a file or directory can be found on the following page.
We recognize that not everyone will fall under the default limits. We will work with users and projects to negotiate additional space in some cases. If you feel your project needs additional space, please direct all requests and questions to the User Assistance Center.
Check Current Usage
You can check your current HPSS usage by issuing the “showusage command” from any NCCS machine.
[home.ccs.ornl.gov] showusage -s hpss
HPSS Storage in GB:
Project Totals user
Project Storage Storage
__________________________|__________________________|______________
user | 243.30 | 243.30
legacy | | 7.01
abc123 | 5.86 | 3.01
Every user gets a default overhead account. This is a project with the same name as your username. This is how your HPSS Home usage is calculated.
The project total is shown in the first storage column, and your usage in that project is shown in the second Storage column.
Files stored on the system prior to March 15, 2008 are associated with a legacy project. Any file associated with the legacy project is not used in the quota calculation. Users are not able to associate new files to the legacy account. We also strongly encourage users to associate legacy files with projects. Information on modifying an account associated with a file or directory can be found on the following page.
More information about HPSS accounting can be found on the following page.
Please direct all requests and questions to the User Assistance Center.
