Background

Since late 2019, SNIC's storage policy for Centre Storage states that storage needs to be applied for and motivated separately from compute resources (core hours) and be assigned to separate storage projects.

As NAISS will at least initially keep working just as SNIC did, this policy remains in place.

Centres can make limited exceptions to this rule. At NSC, we have decided to continue automatically allocating a small storage area (500 GiB, 1 million files) to all new compute projects. Our motivation for this is that most projects only need a small amount of storage, and not having to write and process an extra application per project saves projects PIs and NSC staff a lot of time.

However, once a project needs to store more than 500 GiB or 1 million files, a separate storage project must be applied for.

Storage attached to a compute project

Except for legacy projects created before late 2019, all compute projects either has a storage allocation of 500 GiB or none at all (if the compute project is using storage from a storage project).

Storage attached to a compute project is automatically accessible to all members of the compute project.

A legacy project that wants to increase its storage allocation must apply for a storage project and transfer the storage there.

Storage-only projects

Linking membership to compute projects

In SUPR it is possible to link one or more compute projects to a storage project so that the members of the compute projects automatically get access to the storage.

If this feature is not used, all members of the compute projects needs to be added to the storage project manually by the storage project PI.

Accessing a storage project

In order to access project storage, you need a login account on Tetralith or Sigma. In order to get (or re-open) a login account, you must be a member of at least one active compute project on Tetralith or Sigma.

There are some technical reasons for this, but the main reason is that Centre Storage is intended for storage actively used by a compute project, so it makes little sense for a user to only have access to storage and not to compute.

If for some reason there are users who need access to storage but absolutely cannot be allowed access to compute, the project PI can contact NSC Support to discuss options.