Hi all -

I just installed BOINC for the first time and started running a couple different projects. It's really exciting to set it in action!

When it asks you to allocate disk space to the local drive in the preferences utility (i.e. "Use no more than 100 GB of disk space"), I'm not sure exactly what it's going to do with that space. I'd like to give it as much space as possible to work on the rendering, but am not sure how it will work, so I limited it to 5GB right now.

Is it going to write files to the hard disk and take up space on permanent or temporary basis (i.e. like a buffer)?

Will it automatically clear out this memory when it is done running? Or if it is permanently writing files to my disc, will I need to go in and delete those files later if I want my space back?

Any explanation would help.

Thanks,

Scott

All projects will create files specific to individual workunits while running, and delete them when those workunits are done. Projects usually also download per-workunit input files, and delete them when that workunit is done. The computation results are deleted as soon as they are uploaded.

The applications are downloaded once and kept in the disk, until a new version is released by the project.

Now, that's just general concepts. Some projects download big input files and keep them across several workunits; same file is used by many workunits. Then, once there is no more work that can be done with that file, the project tells your computer to delete it. (Einstein@Home)

Some projects keep several megabytes of computation results on your computer once the task is done, but each task takes several months, so data doesn't really accumulate too fast. (Climateprediction.net)

What will really happen depends on the project. Ask on their forums.


What you set in the preferences is a maximum. If BOINC is reaching the limits you specified, it may stop getting work from some projects ("there is work but it needs X more megabytes of disk than you have allowed").

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Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense, and I've noticed that whatever the case, the biggest file sizes that the projects have produced whilst running have been under 200MB, so it's not a big deal.

Thanks,

Scott