I had this question for a long time now and I was wondering, is it possible to have BOINC save tasks on different storage devices than on the drive that you downloaded it on. Like for example: i have a D:, E:, and F: storage devices, all having 2 TB of storage. Is there a way to save most tasks on those drives? BOINC is downloaded on D: drive.

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Depends on the operating system how you do it, but BOINC stores its tasks in a separate data directory, away from its program files.
You can setup the data directory on another drive, no problem.

In Windows, the default data directory is a hidden directory at C:\Programdata\BOINC\
You can move this directory elsewhere (do close BOINC down before you do). Then you can either go the registry route and change things there, or uninstall BOINC, reinstall it and in the third screen in the installer, click Advanced, then set the path to the data directory (second option from the top) to where you just moved your data directory to, then complete the installation.

If you want to go the registry route, the key to change is the DATADIR key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Setup
No need to reboot the computer afterwards.

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Depends on the operating system how you do it, but BOINC stores its tasks in a separate data directory, away from its program files.
You can setup the data directory on another drive, no problem.

In Windows, the default data directory is a hidden directory at C:\Programdata\BOINC\
You can move this directory elsewhere (do close BOINC down before you do). Then you can either go the registry route and change things there, or uninstall BOINC, reinstall it and in the third screen in the installer, click Advanced, then set the path to the data directory (second option from the top) to where you just moved your data directory to, then complete the installation.

If you want to go the registry route, the key to change is the DATADIR key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Setup
No need to reboot the computer afterwards.

I went the registry route, now what do I change for it to have tasks on multiple drives to utilize 6TB of storage?

No, you can't use multiple drives. You can move your data directory to ONE drive. But really, even if you add all projects available and allow work for all the applications, with a 10 day cache and 10 extra days of storage, you'd have hard luck filling 1 TB of disk space. The projects under BOINC don't use much space for their tasks. Yes, some do have 1Gb tasks, but even if you set 10+10 days worth of cache, chances are you'll only download 20GB of tasks for that project.

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Ahh that makes more sense now. Thank you!

Same basic problem - except I am using Linux. I would like to move from the / root partition to the user /home partition with data for the various projects I subscribe to. Otherwise, I would have to restructure the partition sizes and re-install the system.

Can you help?

Mike

You can move BOINC under Linux but involves lots of editing of symlinks and such picking up all the scattered BOINC files in various directories. Much easier to just use the BOINC All-in-One package. It is just a preconfigured BOINC installation for the Seti project with all its applications already loaded. You normally just download the package and unzip it someplace in /home. Then all BOINC files are in one location and you are the complete owner with owner permissions.

You can just remove the Seti project once you start it up and the Seti directory will be removed. You can add any project you want just like any other version of BOINC. Current package has the 7.16.5 client in it but the old 7.14.2 Manager but that is of no concern. You can remove the Seti gpu application source file directory to save some room if you are not interested and still want to keep the Seti project installed. Read the documentation, it is well written.

http://www.arkayn.us/lunatics/BOINC.7z

After uninstalling BOINC with the usual method, still took a bit of effort to track down every mention within the / root structure to make sure there was no residual of any sort. Downloaded and installed your recommendation to a /home/mike/BOINC directory and was immediately able to add Rosetta and Asteroids back in and they are all nicely contained where I can see them and making use of a generous disk space.

Thank you,
Mike

Under Linux, yes, with difficulty.

Under Windows... oh dear.

Note that adding symlinks in the slots directory won't work under Linux as anything added there is simply removed when BOINC does its startup checks.

BTRFS will let you span subvolumes across separate drives. I'll just leave that there.

Note that adding symlinks in the slots directory won't work under Linux as anything added there is simply removed when BOINC does its startup checks.

What project requires you to have symlinks in the slots directories?

The only symlinks I was aware of from the repo versions is /var/lib/boinc-client >>>/var/lib/boinc and to /etc/boinc-client, /etc/ssl/certs.

That is just one of the issues that you need to fully clean out any vestiges of the daemon installation from a distro package of BOINC after doing a purge and autoremove.

But you really need to make sure it all gets cleaned out before installing the AIO to make sure it does not get interfered with in /home.

After you install the AIO, it is all just great and no issues doing what you want with any file or application since the permissions are yours.