The fastest disks, called temporary directory ($TMPDIR), are for temporary files during the run. These disks should be kept as free as possible. The idea is that disk space is always available. Users should not store their files on these disks for long. Temporary directories are purged, removing the oldest files first. The fastest disks are always on machines’ local disks, and they are not visible on other machines.

Dedicated disk space is reserved for long-term storage of large files. The work directory ($WRKDIR) is reserved for, for example, software development and further processing of run results. The work directory is not visible on other machines.

The philosophy of the metawork directory ($METAWRK) corresponds to that of the local work directory ($WRKDIR), but the metawork directory is visible on all servers. Like the work directory, the $METAWRK space is used for software development and further processing of run results.

The home directory ($HOME) is located on the disk server. The same directory is visible on every machine. The home directory is the storage place for emails, initialization files and constantly used programs and files. The home directory is not the appropriate place to perform massive reading and writing operations. Files are stored in your home directory as long as your user ID is valid, but the amount of disk space is limited.

The $ARCHIVE dedicated archive server is intended for long-term storage of large files. The tape archive on the archive server contains tens of terabytes of memory.

The temporary, work and home directories as well as the archive server described above are user-ID specific. Against requisition, project groups can be allocated disk space for project-specific use, so-called project disk, for shared use by the project group members. A disk quota and expiration date are assigned for the project disk.