AImageLab-HPC

Introducing DRES: Long-term Storage for Project Results

June 23, 2026

Dear users,

We are pleased to announce the availability of DRES, a new long-term storage area on AImageLab-HPC.

What is DRES?

DRES (/dres/<project>) is a shared project storage area backed by a dedicated BeeGFS target, designed to preserve final project results beyond the project lifetime. Unlike the /work area, which is deleted immediately when a project expires, data in /dres is not automatically removed and persists until explicitly deleted by the HPC team.

Key Properties

Property /work /dres
Filesystem BeeGFS BeeGFS
Quota Per project Per project
Backup No No
Deleted on expiry Yes - immediately No
Available on compute nodes Yes No
Available on login nodes Yes Yes

Typical Lifecycle

  1. During the project, production data lives in /work/<project>.
  2. As the project end date approaches, the PI migrates final results and datasets to /dres/<project>.
  3. When the project expires, /work/<project> is removed, but /dres/<project> remains accessible from the login nodes.

How to Request a DRES Allocation

DRES is not provisioned automatically alongside WORK. PIs can request a DRES allocation directly from the ColdFront portal by visiting their project page and clicking Request Resource Allocation.

Checking Storage Quota

Storage usage in /dres can be monitored with the squota command, exactly as for /work.

For any questions, contact the HPC Helpdesk at aimagelab-srv-support@unimore.it.

Best regards,
Lorenzo.