Brian, There are usually three or four categories of storage:
1) /home - small, just enough to keep source files and compile code 2) /scratch/local - distributed disks within a cluster for local writing (think Gaussian) 3) /scratch/global - a high-performance (and higher cost) parallel file system accessible by all nodes 4) /archive - a very large pool of spinning disks which receives data from /scratch/global when a run (or set of consecutive runs) is "complete." The idea is to clear off the expensive parallel system for other run-time use, but that you still want to hold the data for some future need. I would keep your /home and /scratch/global separate. The /scratch/global solution you pick will very much depend on how you want it connected to your clusters. By definition (of your cluster suite) you cannot have a system that relies on IB as not all of your systems have IB. This leaves GbE as the only global means of connection. If at all possible, I would dedicate a GbE interface on all nodes who access /scratch/global. -- Brian D. Ropers-Huilman, Director Systems Administration and Technical Operations <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Supercomputing Institute for Digital Simulation and Advanced Computation 599 Walter Library +1 612-626-5948 (V) 117 Pleasant Street S.E. +1 612-624-8861 (F) University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus Minneapolis, MN 55455-0255 http://www.msi.umn.edu/ _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
