Monitor your disk space quota
A brief introduction to best practices in data management using disk space quotas.
What is disk space quota?
Briefly, disk space quota are limits on the amount of disk space that individual users can use on a shared computing system.
Once a user exceeds their allowed disk space quota – possibly after a set grace period – they will not be able to create or edit any file in the filesystem until they either:
- Delete or compress files, to return within their allowed quota (where possible).
- Request an increase to their quota.
Why monitor disk usage?
CCB accounts are subject to charging as a result of the costs associated with the necessary storage and computing facilities.
To ensure fair usage of the shared disk resources, the CCB cluster enforces quotas that restrict the amount of disk space that users may utilise to store files for their various projects.
Users who exceed their quota may see some of their commands fail on the CCB cluster, in particular commands that attempt to create files.
Monitoring disk space usage regularly allows users to anticipate times when they may approach or exceed their allowed quota, and take preventive action, including:
- Delete unused or intermediate output files.
- Compress large files.
- Request an increase to their quota.
Users are encouraged to regularly check their disk usage and quota, to manage their files and remain within their disk usage quota or request an increase to their quota (at an additional cost). Refer to the Help section for ways to contact system administrators and request increase to your quotas.
How to monitor disk usage?
The du command can be used to estimate file space usage.
The option -h is commonly used to display values in human-readable form (i.e.,
with units).
By default, the du command reports the size of each directory in the working
directory.
For instance:
du -h
The option -s is commonly used to summarise the total disk space usage across
all the contents of the directory.
Moreover, the du command can be given the path to a target directory, instead
of the working directory.
For instance:
du -hs ~/ccb_demo
How to monitor your quota usage?
The quota command can be used to query your current quota usage and total
allowance, across all directories, files, and projects.
The option -s displays values in human-readable format (i.e, with units).
quota -s
