Diagram of Lonestar's directories

Diagram of Lonestar directories and what connects to what, and how fast

Lonestar is a collection of 1,888 computers connected to three file servers, each with unique characteristics.

You need to understand the file servers to know how to use them.

 

$HOME

$WORK

$SCRATCH

Purged?

No

No

Files are purged if not accessed for 10 days.

Backed Up?

Yes

No

No

Capacity

1GB

250GB

Basically infinite. 1.4 PB

Command to Access

cdh

cdw

cds

Purpose

Store Executables

Store Files

Run Jobs

Executables that aren't available on TACC through the "module" command should be stored in $HOME.

If you plan to be using a set of files frequently or would like to save the results of a job, they should be stored in $WORK.

If you're going to run a job, it's a good idea to keep your input files in a directory in $WORK and copy them to a directory in $SCRATCH where you plan to run your job.

This example command might help a bit:

 cp $WORK/my_fastq_data/*fastq $SCRATCH/my_project/

Now let's go on to look at how jobs are run on Lonestar.