High Performance Storage System (HPSS) User Guide
The centralized, long-term data storage system at SDSC is the High Performance Storage System (HPSS). SDSC manages one of the world's largest productions of HPSS, which currently stores more than 4.98 PB of data (as of February 2008) with a total system capacity of 25 PB of data. Data has been added at an average rate of 240 TB per month at present.
HPSS can be used for permanent file storage when users exceed their home directory quotas. Home directories on most of the SDSC compute platforms have a limited quota (e.g., 1GB on DataStar.) On all SDSC machines, each user's temporary directory is subject to purge. Because unaccessed files in temporary directories are purged routinely (currently, every 96 hours), users should make a practice of immediately storing files after use.
Any allocated user can utilize HPSS. HPSS accounts for allocated users are automatically set up. Currently, there is no charge for HPSS service in support of allocated computing.
This storage system is very reliable; however, data can be lost or damaged due to media failures, system software bugs, hardware failures, and user mistakes.
It is your responsibility to back up critical data. Because of the enormous amount of data involved, SDSC does not back up your HPSS files.
