ddk@beta.UUCP (David D Kaas) (10/14/87)
We have a CRAY XMP12 running UNICOS and have been having problems managing our disk space. What do other UNIX sites do to manage their disk space? Do you purge files, charge users for space, or let the users manage their own space? Dave Kaas - D.O.E. Richland, Wa. e41126%rlvax3.xnet@lanl.gov or ddk@lanl.gov -- Dave Kaas - D.O.E. Richland, Wa. e41126%rlvax3.xnet@lanl.gov
shor@sphinx.uchicago.edu (Melinda Shore) (10/14/87)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions In article <11121@beta.UUCP> ddk@beta.UUCP (David D Kaas) writes: > > We have a CRAY XMP12 running UNICOS and have been having >problems managing our disk space. What do other UNIX sites do to >manage their disk space? Do you purge files, charge users for space, >or let the users manage their own space? It's worth noting that supercomputer disk use patterns are very different from disk use patterns on conventional machines. A major part of what supercomputers are used for is to generate humungo amounts of data, and it's probably a mistake to assume that you want to keep all of it online. Note also that while throwing an additional medium- speed disk at your Vax doesn't cost that much, DD49s are *extremely* expensive. We are planning on anticipating the problem by finding and installing a decent archiving system, then charging through the nose for online storage. The problem with that is that there just aren't that many to choose from. CFS is probably the most attractive right now. -- Melinda Shore ..!hao!oddjob!sphinx!shor Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center shore@morgul.psc.edu
billw@killer.UUCP (Bill Wisner) (10/15/87)
ddk@beta.UUCP: > We have a CRAY XMP12 running UNICOS and have been having > problems managing our disk space. What do other UNIX sites do to > manage their disk space? Do you purge files, charge users for space, > or let the users manage their own space? From a user's standpoint, I've always been rather against things like charging users for space. It's my personal standpoint that no restrictions should be placed on user directory sizes -- as long as they stay with in reason. Within reason must be changed, of course, depending on the particulars of the site. If a user has a ridiculous amount of space consumed, don't immediately get nasty. One technique that I've known to be effective is to hold them up to ridicule, in a fashion: I've known of systems that maintained a list of top disk-hogs, and how much space they used, in /etc/motd. It was pretty effective, also. If lesser measures fail, then it may be reasonable to charge users for space or even delete files FOR them is necessary to get their disk usage below the limit. Obviously, a warning by mail is in order before such steps are taken. Oh, and about file purging: This is, of course, my opinion only, but I consider an automatic purge of any file that has not been accessed within a certain amount of time (like six months?) to be reasonable. It would probably be a good idea to warn users that this will happen ahead of time; there are files that people consider important and refer to for information often, but they may never modify it. Advance warning would make such a system an effective method of removing old files that users don't really care about any more. Only passive cooperation is required, unless they have some "keepers" laying around. -- Bill Wisner, HASA 'A' Division ..ihnp4!killer!billw "It's the coarse feel of the rope that I don't like."