Page History

Version: PUBLIC 20 Apr 10 Jun 2022 

Overview

To meet the increasing demand  for more space on /scratch from our researchers and to reduce the number of 'forgotten' temporary files, NCI is introducing a new file management policy for the Gadi /scratch file system. This new policy will automatically clean up files not accessed for more than 100 days and so create more space available for research projects.

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Step 1  - Files not accessed for more than 100 days are moved from project directories on /scratch into a quarantine space. Once a file has been moved to quarantine it will no longer be accessible to its owner, the project, or to any HPC jobs run by the project or collaborating projects with read access, regardless of file permission settings.

Step 2 - Files remain in quarantine for 14 days. During this quarantine period files maybe recovered by the file owner and restored to active use if needed.

Step 3 - Any files remaining in quarantine at the end of the 14-day quarantine period will be deleted. Deletion from the quarantine space is automatic, and final. After a file is deleted, it cannot be recovered. All users are reminded that the /scratch file system is intended to store working files only. Data that researchers or projects wish to keep for an extended period of time must be copied from the /scratch filesystem to the project's /g/data space, archived to massdata (tape) or downloaded to local storage.

Implementation Schedule

This new /scratch file management procedure is a significant shift in the way the /scratch file system is managed, so it will be progressively introduced in May-June 2022, with full implementation from 1 July 2022. NCI must implement this /scratch file system change before the 2022 Q3 (July) downtime as it will support essential tuning and reconfiguration of the /scratch file system in a full production, peak performance capacity.  

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1. 17 May 2022 : Files within /scratch project directories which have not been accessed for 365 days will be quarantined. Any quarantined files that are not recovered by project users within the initial 14-day quarantine period 17-31 May will be automatically deleted at the end of the quarantine period, 31 May.
2. 07 14 Jun 2022 : Files on /scratch which have not been accessed for 100 days will be quarantined. Any files remaining in quarantine at the end of the 14-day quarantine period will be automatically deleted. 
3. From 21 Jun 2022  /scratch files not accessed for more than 100 days will be quarantined on a continuous, rolling basis. The automated quarantine-expiry process will run each day, adding any files with atime greater than 100 days to the quarantine space, and deleting any files that have resided in quarantine for 14 days. 

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