CSL: Policies: Project Disk Space

 
Flexible project space is available on the department Network Appliance filer.

 

As an alternative to buying external disks for research data, the CS Lab offers moderate amounts of disk space on one of the department's Network Appliance (NetApp) filers. Project space on the filer offers several advantages to purchasing external disks, the sole option available to researchers in the past. The filer offers a robust RAID 4 disk array, coupled with a very fast ethernet link, for fast file access throughout the department. In addition, the filer gives the researcher access to snapshots, which allow accidentally deleted or altered files to be recovered from disk, by the user, in addition to the department's tape backups. Also with the filer, a researcher can increase the amount of storage at any time by sending a request to the lab staff. Finally, the researcher can maintain the space as long as needed without having to worry about replacing failed disk hardware.

  • Each primary faculty member automatically receives a multi-GB project partition on the NetApp Filer; additional space is available upon request. The project space is named according to the following convention:

    /usr/project/{username}/

  • Individual projects, whenever possible, should go under the PI faculty project space. If desired, an automount of the project subdirectory can be created to make the project appear to not be a faculty sub-directory. For example:

    faculty directory: /usr/project/schmidt/ project subdirectory: /usr/project/schmidt/widget/ subdirectory automount: /usr/project/widget/

    This arrangement provides a self-documenting association between the project directory and the PI, yet is functionally equivalent to being a top-level project directory.
  • Exceptions can be made for multi-PI projects - these can be created outside of any particular faculty's project space.
  • This space is on monthly full and daily incremental backups. Please do not use it for temp space or junk that does not need to be regularly backed up, unless special arrangements are made. Please see the Disk Usage Policy for additional storage options.

Please take a look at your project space and be sure to adjust permissions and group access to your needs. If you do not want or need the additional space, please let us know and we'll delete it; it can always be recreated later.

If you have any questions, please contact the Lab Staff.