How is scratch space handled on the cluster?
Scratch space is supplied in the /scratch area of the file system. This space is intended for transitory data that are generated during a calculation and are usually deleted shortly after the calculation has finished. However, it is worthwhile to consider keeping intermediate results that are only needed for a few days on scratch space if there is a danger of exceeding disk quota in /home. Note that our scratch space is now global, i.e. accessible from all nodes. While this implies somewhat slower access than local scratch, it allows data to be used from different nodes within a program run (e.g. of an MPI program), and it simplifies maintanance. Scratch space is accessed via the /scratch directory.
