/scratch and /local

If you need extra temporary storage space, please consider using the /scratch and /local disks.

Each user has a /scratch directory (e.g., /scratch/csmajor1 for user csmajor1). This is a good place to install software (virtual machines) or download large datasets. /scratch is mounted to all lab machines, so anything in your scratch directory should be accessible from any machine. We do not provide backups for data stored in /scratch, so please keep that in mind.

cd /scratch/csmajor1
ls
mv /home/csmajor1/largefile .

Each lab machine has a /local directory (just leftover disk space not used by the operating system). You are welcome to make a directory on any machine’s /local and store data there. For example (using a machine called poppy):

poppy[~]$ cd /local
poppy[local]$ mkdir csmajor1
poppy[local]$ cd csmajor1
poppy[csmajor1]$ 

Obviously, this /local/csmajor1 directory is now only accessible on poppy. However, accessing it from poppy is probably faster than accessing files from your home directory or /scratch, since the disk is on poppy, and not a network disk.


See also:


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