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Research storage

Netfiles

UVM faculty are eligible for a 10 TB allocation of "research storage" on the Netfiles storage cluster without cost. Netfiles is less expensive, and it is easier to increase your allocation, if needed, than GPFS.

Netfiles is an excellent option for storing files that will not be accessed often. For example, data from a high-throughput sequencer might be copied there, then a processing stream would access it once in the initial data processing step, but thereafter, the Netfiles data will largely be an archival copy.

Netfiles is not a good place to use for data that will be used regularly because the file servers do not perform well when many programs are accessing many files simultaneously. Not only would it make your programs slower, it will also affect all other users of Netfiles. It is also possible that other, non-VACC users of Netfiles may slow the service.

GPFS should be used for data that will be regularly accessed by programs running on the VACC.

Netfiles allocations are called 'shares', which appear to the computer acessing them as directories, whether on the VACC cluster machines or on machines outside the VACC.

For more information about Netfiles see Research Storage (Netfiles)

The Research Storage Request web site serves two purposes: It is used to request that a Netfiles share be created, and once the share has been created, it is used to manage the Netfiles share.

When requesting changes to an existing share, please make sure to look at the Request Type pull-down for the types of requests that can be made there. Groups to be used for Netfiles access can be requested there, and once they are created, they can be used when setting permissions on the share.

Netfiles permissions independent of VACC

The groups and permissions on Netfiles shares are separate and independent of the groups and permissions on the VACC GPFS systems. You will need to add/remove users to the groups used for Netfiles access in addition to the changes made when you sponsor or unsponsor a user in the VACC account administration dashboard.

The allocation on Netfiles is called a 'share', and Netfiles shares are available as directories on the VACC cluster. PIs choose the name of the Netfiles share when they first request it. Say the PI grundoon requests a share with the name grundoon_data, that would then be accessible on the VACC cluster as /netfiles/grundoon_data.