Filesystem overview¶
Summary¶
NERSC file systems can be divided into two categories: local and global. Local file systems are only accessible on a single platform and provide the best performance; global file systems are accessible on multiple platforms, simplifying data sharing between platforms.
File systems are configured for different purposes. Each machine has access to at least three different file systems with different levels of performance, permanence and available space.
| file system | snapshots | backup | purging | access |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| project | yes | no | no | repository |
| home | yes | yes | no | user |
| common | no | no | no | repository |
| Cori scratch | no | no | yes | user |
| Edison scratch | no | no | yes | user |
| Edison scratch3 | no | no | yes | special request |
| HPSS | no | no | no | user |
Note
See quotas for detailed information about inode, space quotas and file system purge policies.
Global storage¶
Global Home¶
Permanent, relatively small storage for data like source code, shell scripts that you want to keep. This file system is not tuned for high performance for parallel jobs. Referenced by the environment variable $HOME.
Common¶
A performant platform to install software stacks and compile code. Mounted read-only on compute nodes.
Project¶
Large, permanent, medium-performance file system. Project directories are intended for sharing data within a group of researchers.
Archive (HPSS)¶
A high capacity tape archive intended for long term storage of inactive and important data. Accessible from all systems at NERSC. Space quotas are allocation dependent
The High Performance Storage System (HPSS) is a modern, flexible, performance-oriented mass storage system. It has been used at NERSC for archival storage since 1998. HPSS is intended for long term storage of data that is not frequently accessed.
Local storage¶
Scratch¶
Edison and Cori each have dedicated, large, local, parallel scratch file systems based on Lustre. The scratch file systems are intended for temporary uses such as storage of checkpoints or application input and output.
Burst Buffer¶
Cori's Burst Buffer provides very high performance I/O on a per-job or short-term basis. It is particularly useful for codes that are I/O-bound, for example, codes that produce large checkpoint files, or that have small or random I/O reads/writes.