I am considering adding a small parallel file system ~(5-10TB) my small cluster (~32 2x dual core Opteron nodes) that is used mostly by a handful of regular users. Currently the only storage accessible to all nodes is home directory space which is provided by the Lab's IT department (this is a SAN volume connected to the head node by 2x FC links, and NFS exported to the compute nodes). I don't have to "worry" about the IT provided SAN space - they back it up, provide redundant hardware, etc. The parallel file system would be scratch space (and not backed up by IT). We have a mix of home grown apps doing a pretty wide range of things (some do a lot of I/O, others don't), and things like BLAST and BLAT.
Can anyone out there provide recommendations for a good solution for fast scratch space for a cluster of this size? Right now I was thinking about PVFS2. How many I/O servers should I have, and how many cores and RAM per I/O server? Are there other recommendations for fast scratch space (it doesn't have to be a parallel file system, something with less hardware would be nice) -- Glen L. Beane Software Engineer The Jackson Laboratory http://www.jax.org _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
