The Big Red Cluster

Disk Quotas

User home directory disk space is allocated on the RAC NAS storage device. Users are given a 10GB disk quota.

Home directory paths on the various UITS Research Systems follow a coherent naming convention:

  • /N/u/username/BigRed - Big Red
  • /N/u/username/AVIDD - AVIDD-B and AVIDD-I
  • /N/u/username/AVIDD-O - AVIDD-O
  • /N/u/username/Libra - Libra Cluster
  • /N/u/username/RDC - Research Database Complex
  • (etc, etc)

Users needing more than 10GB of permanent storage space should request a Mass Store account for access to the High Performance Storage System (HPSS). For more information, see The Indiana University Massive Data Storage Service.

Local Scratch Disk Space

Note: Scratch filesystems are not backed up to tape; data purged from the scratch filesystems cannot be recovered.

Scratch disk space is available locally on each node in /scratch (67GB). Files in /scratch are automatically deleted once they are 14 days old.

Shared Scratch Disk Space

Note: Scratch filesystems are not backed up to tape; data purged from the scratch filesystems cannot be recovered.

Shared scratch disk space refers to disk space that is available to all users and accessible to all Big Red nodes. It is intended for short term storage and is not backed up, and files older than 60 days are purged automatically to free up disk space. It is intended as working space for running programs and temporary storage for program output, and is not intended as online archival space. Users are responsible for making their own copies of the data in case of a disk failure or the need to free up space. Shared scratch space is accessible in one 266TB GPFS filesystem, /N/gpfsbr.

No disk quotas are enforced on these filesystems.

Using Mass Store on Big Red

Access to IU's Massive Data Storage System is available via ftp, pftp, or hsi. To use hsi, add the +hpss keyword to your ~/.soft file and run resoft. For more information about MDSS, please see the MDSS Starter Kit. For more information about Softenv, please see the Sofenv section of HPC's Big Red Primer.

Mail Spool Disk Space Usage

We do not provide a production mail service on the Big Red Cluster, however LoadLeveler communicates via e-mail. Mail forwarding should be configured during account creation, but if you are receiving mail on the cluster, you may need to set up a .forward file for your account; see this Knowledge Base Document for more information on setting a .forward file.