Expanse CPU has 728 AMD EPYC Rome nodes with 128 cores and 256 GB RAM each. Suited for parallel CPU workloads that scale across many nodes.
Jobs
Expanse uses the Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management (SLURM) batch environment. When you run in the batch mode, you submit jobs to be run on the compute nodes using the sbatch command as described in the Expanse User Guide.
https://www.sdsc.edu/systems/expanse/user_guide.html#narrow-wysiwyg-7
Remember that computationally intensive jobs should be run only on the compute nodes and not the login nodes. A node-exclusive job that runs on a compute node for one hour will be charged 128 SUs (128 cores x 1 hour).
Queue specifications
Metrics updated 2026-06-16
| Name | Purpose | CPUs | GPUs | RAM | Jobs
30 days
|
Wait Time
30-day trend
|
Wall Time
30-day trend
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| compute | Compute Node Usage | 128 AMD EPYC 7742 | 256 GB DDR4 DRAM | 22,468 |
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| debug | Priority access to shared nodes set aside for testing of jobs with short walltime and limited resources | 128 AMD EPYC 7742 | 256 GB DDR4 DRAM | 13,426 |
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| preempt | Non-refundable discounted jobs to run on free nodes that can be pre-empted by jobs submitted to any other queue | 128 AMD EPYC 7742 | 256 GB DDR4 DRAM | 1,494 |
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| large-shared | Single-node jobs using large memory up to 2 TB (minimum memory required 256G) | 128 AMD EPYC 7742 | 256 GB DDR4 DRAM | 154 |
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| shared | 128 AMD EPYC 7742 | 256 GB DDR4 DRAM | 857,326 |
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Datasets
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| OceanTopography | OpenTopography provides efficient, user-friendly access to high-resolution topography data, processing tools, and resources to advance understanding of the Earth's surface, vegetation, and built environment. |
| OpenAltimetry | OpenAltimetry is a web based data visualization and discovery tool for exploring surface elevation profiles over time using satellite altimetry data from NASA's ICESat and ICESat-2 missions. |
| OpenForest4D | OpenForest4D is a web-based platform that leverages multi-source remote sensing data and artificial intelligence to generate on-demand, research-grade estimates of forest structure and above-ground biomass in four dimensions for global forest monitoring. |
Storage
File System
| Directory | Path | Quota | Purge | Backup | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scratch Lustre | /expanse/lustre/scratch | 10 TB | 90 days after allocation expiration. | No backups stored. | This is not an archival file system, it is not backed up, and will be purged according to purge policy. |
| Scratch Compute Node | /scratch/$USER/job_$SLURM_JOB_ID | 1 TB | Users only have access to these SSDs during job execution at the local file system path to the compute node. | ||
| Home | /home | 100 GB | N/A | 8 week rolling backup | The home directory is limited in space and should be used only for source code storage. Jobs should never be run from the home file system, as it is not set up for high performance throughput. |
External Storage
In addition to the local scratch storage, users will have access to global parallel filesystems on Expanse. Every Expanse node has access to a 12 PB Lustre parallel file system and a 7 PB Ceph Object Store system, 140 GB/second performance storage. For more information on this see the Expanse User Guide - https://www.sdsc.edu/systems/expanse/user_guide.html#narrow-wysiwyg-10
File Transfer
Data transfer on expanse is done through Globus
For more information on data transfer see the Expanse User Guide
https://www.sdsc.edu/systems/expanse/user_guide.html#narrow-wysiwyg-9
| Supported Methods | Data Transfer Node | URL |
|---|---|---|
| GLOBUS | /expanse/projects |
Login to Expanse CPU
- Users can use their ACCESS account to receive an allocation and login.
- Logging into your ACCESS account will require Duo two-factor authentication.
For more information about logging into Expanse see the user guide
https://www.sdsc.edu/systems/expanse/user_guide.html#narrow-wysiwyg-2
SSH Login
$ ssh <your_username>@login.expanse.sdsc.edu