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How Do I Get Storage on Hellbender?
Hellbender storage connects to the Research Data Ecosystem (RDE) - 8.5PB of high-throughput storage managed by DoIT Research Support Solutions, split across two platforms:
| Platform |
Access Protocol on HPC Nodes |
| VAST |
NFS Client |
| Pixstor |
GPFS Client |
Requesting Storage
- Storage requests must come from a faculty advisor or Principle Investigator (PI).
- Group membership is approved by the assigned PI or their appointed representative.
- Every UM System PI is eligible for 5TB of Pixstor general-tier group storage, usable on both Hellbender and lab machines as a single research data platform.
- Need more than 5TB? PIs can purchase increases in 1TB increments.
Request form: Research Data Ecosystem - New Group Storage Request.
Choosing a Tier: High-Performance vs. General
Both platforms offer general and high-performance tiers, implemented differently:
- Pixstor - General is pinned to a SAS disk pool; High-Performance is pinned to a flash NVMe pool.
- VAST - Tiering is enforced via Quality of Service (QoS) policy, with IOPS/bandwidth limits applied to General allocations. RSS reserves the right to migrate General allocations to lower-tier storage if capacity requires it.
Which One Fits Your Workload?
|
|
Pixstor General |
Pixstor High-Performance |
VAST General |
VAST High-Performance |
| Compute-intensive but not I/O-sustained |
X |
|
|
|
| Sustained multi-GB/s read/write (multi-node jobs) |
|
X |
|
X (with dual-protocol)
|
| SMB shares/Windows network paths |
|
|
X |
|
| External NFS mounts (outside the cluster) |
|
|
X |
X (if also needs sustained high-speed I/O) |
| Dual protocol access (SMB + HPC nodes) |
|
|
X |
X |
Rule of Thumb: Need SMB or external-NFS access? Use VAST. Pure sustained multi-node throughput with no SMB/external-NFS need? Pixtor High-Performance is usually the simpler choice.
Backups & Snapshots
Cluster-attached storage is not backed up to a secondary platform - the only protection is local daily snapshots.
| Platform |
Snapshot Retention |
| Pixstor |
10 daily snapshots |
| VAST |
30 days total (7 daily + 4 weekly) |
Snapshots protect against accidental deletion if caught within the window - they do not protect against hardware failure or environmental disaster to the array.
Data Classification Limits
Cluster-attached storage is approved for Data Class 1 and 2 only, per UM System DCL. Need to store DCL3 or DCL4 data? Contact DoIT RSS so we can find a solution.
For Additional Assistance
For additional assistance please e-mail itrss@missouri.edu or open a general support ticket via TDX.