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Quotas

Storage quotas are enforced to monitor and limit disk usage on a per-user basis. These quotas apply to both the number of files and total storage size used. Storage usage is measured in terms of blocks allocated.

Determine Quotas

Users can determine their quota usage by running the following command:

quota -s

User quota on /home

Disk quotas for user <user> (uid <user_id>):
Filesystem   space   quota   limit   grace   files   quota   limit   grace
store-nfs-ib:/storage/home
              507G   1000G   1024G           2196k*   2048k   2098k
An asterisk(*) indicates the user has exceeded its quota of storage, and writes to /home/ are not allowed.

Command du -sh can be used to view the size of the respective folders:

du -sh /home/<user>/<dir>

Alternatively, users can use dust command, which prints out the tree structure of the directories, with the largest files in them. Depth of the tree can be specified with -d parameter.

Output of dust command 
login01:~$ dust /home/<user>/<dir>
  640G ─┬ .
  523G  ├─┬ ADMIN
  227G  │ ├─┬ qe
  226G  │ │ └─┬ benchmarks-master
  209G  │ │   └─┬ GRIR443
   59G  │ │     ├── GRIR.wfc1
   29G  │ │     ├── GRIR.wfc2
   14G  │ │     └── GRIR.wfc4
  128G  │ ├─┬ cp2k
  128G  │ │ └─┬ FIST
   69G  │ │   ├── nodes
   55G  │ │   └── nodes_new
   71G  │ ├─┬ python
   71G  │ │ └─┬ miniconda3
   36G  │ │   ├── envs
   34G  │ │   └── pkgs
   60G  │ └── orca
   68G  ├─┬ MD
   67G  │ └── Softbark_wood
   22G  └─┬ Docking
   16G    └── COVID19

Exceeded Quotas

If you exceed your storage quotas, you have several options:

 1. Remove unnecessary files and directories fo free up space.

 2. Compress and archive large files to optimize storage. Since write permissions in /home may be suspended, you can first move data to /scratch, compress it, and then store it elsewhere.

  • Compress files: 
    tar czvf /scratch/<user>/data_backup.tgz /home/<user>/<Directories-files-to-tar-and-zip>

cd /scratch/<user>
tar xzvf data_backup.tgz # Verify the content
rm /home/<user>/<Directories-files-to-tar-and-zip>
  • Move the backup to long-term storage: 
    cp /scratch/<user>/data_backup.tgz /projects/<user>/data_backup.tgz
rm /scratch/<user>/data_backup.tgz

Temporary Solution

This solution is only temporary. Users should promptly download important files and store them securely.

 3. Request Additional Storage: If more space is needed, the Principal Investigator (PI) can submit a justification for increased storage allocation.

By proactively managing storage and keeping data organized, users can ensure smooth access to resources without exceeding quotas.

Created by: Marek Štekláč