File System Quotas

/blue filesystems

The /blue filesystem is intended to support all job-related I/O to or from both the interactive and batch servers. You should perform all interactive processes and batch jobs on /blue, not on any other filesystems (especially not /home). Using other filesystems for this purpose is in violation of Research Computing policy and will result in suspension of your account.

The /blue filesystem is essential to the overall performance of HiPerGator. It is not intended for long-term storage and should only be used for current computational projects. Once a project is finished, data should be moved to your personal, invested long-term, group, or department storage.

Quotas

Quotas have been implemented on /blue to ensure that there is always some free space available. This is necessary to avoid users inadvertently filling the filesystem, which could result in job failure for Research Computing users.

Filesystem quotas are not intended to be a barrier to your productivity. If you need space beyond what is initially allocated, it is possible to request a temporary quota increase or to purchase additional storage.

Check your quota

Log in to your Research Computing account using SSH and use the following command. This will return quota information for both your user account and primary group.

$ lfs quota /blue 

To check the quota of a group that you have secondary membership to:

$ lfs quota -g <groupname> /blue 

Currently, a user can check their own quota and the quota of their group(s). Users cannot check the quotas of other group members or other groups.

Example

In this example, the output returned represents quota information for the "farmerie" group.

$ lfs quota -g farmerie /blue
Disk quotas for group farmerie (gid 3310):
    Filesystem   kbytes       quota      limit       grace   files      quota   limit   grace
       /blue   5678801848  6442450944  6442450944      -     204483       0       0       -

Explanation of output

As you can see, the output includes a number of columns. The first six columns of output all contain useful information. Keep in mind that all numbers are in kilobytes.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Output	Filesystem	kbytes	quota	limit	grace	files	quota	limit	grace
	/blue	5678801848	6442450944	6442450944	-	204483	0	0	-
Description	name of the file system	amount of space used by group	amount of space assigned to group	maximum amount of space accessible by group	grace period for exceeding quota	number of files owned by group	soft limit of files allowed	hard limit of files allowed	grace period for files
Notes		approx. 5.7 TB	approx. 6.4 TB	approx. 6.4 TB	'-' denotes the default (7 days)		0 means no limit	0 means no limit	'-' denotes the default (7 days)

Exceeded quota

If you exceed your quota, your applications will receive a quota violation error (i.e., “Disk quota exceeded.”). In most cases, the quota and limit (columns 3 and 4) are the same, so the grace period is irrelevant.

Temporary quota increase

Each group may request one temporary quota increase per twelve month period. Such increases will be granted for up to three months.

To request an increase, please open a support request. In your request, please indicate:

1. How much additional space you need
2. The filesystem on which you need it
3. How long you will need it (up to 3 months)

Temporary quota increases are granted at the discretion of Researching Computing on an “as available” basis. If your needs do not fit into the parameters outlined above, please contact us with a description of your situation so we can review it and recommend an appropriate solution. For more space on a long-term basis, you may want to consider making a storage investment. Please see our website for more information about storage options.