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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: Distributed Storage! |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 7
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I would like to say I highly support World Community Grid, but why does it ask in the options how much space it can use on your computer if WCG doesn't plan to use distributed storage? I find it useless to ask if it can use 10gb, and me to tell it that it can use 10 GBs when it only uses 80 mb. Also, I'd like to suggest it does use distributed storage if this hasn't already been considered seeing as no project ever has before (no idea what happened to storage@home) and what with the terabytes of data being gathered a month, it'd be quite useful to. That's my 2 cents ^.^
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
First - there's no need to repeat your question in different forums. We'll see it wherever you post it.
The disk space setting is generic. Different projects have different disk space requirements. Some small, some large. For example, AfricanClimate@Home requires 1 GB of space. The setting is a maximum: the space isn't reserved. This isn't distributed storage. It is just working space for the workunits. Some projects write very large intermediate files and checkpoint files. We have discussed the pros and cons of distributed storage before. The bottom line: distributed storage is more complicated than it first sounds. This doesn't rule it out, but explains why it's not at the top of our list. I hope this clears up a few things for you. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sorry, I realized I should've posted it in suggestions about the time i hit the post button <.>. You can delete one if you haven't already. Even still, I think it would be worth it in reality.. Terabytes of data can be a pain to store..
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi ShadowJ,
BOINC is an open framework. Any research project might use it, not just WCG. There is no telling how much disk space some university project might grab, so BOINC includes a user-set maximum. It will try to keep any project from grabbing more than the user allows. For normal well-behaved projects the storage limit is unnecessary. But someday a grad student will make a hasty programming error and the storage limit will be a lifesaver. Distributed storage becomes extremely complex if you do not control the storage media. Programming the various cases costs more than simply buying the storage. So it is possible but also economically unreasonable under current circumstances. (Using free graduate student programmers . . . . well - - maybe.) Lawrence |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Interesting. I know any research project may, although none truly has except storage@home planned to but vanished.. However you make it sound like the real cost is upfront because it would be really hard to program it especially because it would have to run checks on the files so often to make sure someone didn't reformat their computer or let a virus eat their files in the first place. I'm curious if this might be considered in the future or you just really don't see it happening ever?
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hey Shadow,
Instead of having 2 duplicate threads going about the same topic...here's the one I started a week or so ago on this very topic. http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=23027 |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hmm sorry, didn't see your thread.
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