Granite

RP account needed

Granite is a long-term tape archive consisting of a Spectra TFinity library with 20 LTO-9 tape drives and over 300 PB of replicated capacity, fronted by a disk cache. It is particularly well suited for finished data you need to keep but rarely read, and is often used for completed datasets, raw instrument data, and durable second copies of active work held elsewhere. It includes no user software - Granite stores data rather than running it, and pairs with NCSA's Taiga filesystem and the compute systems that mount it.

Storage Documentation

Granite is cold storage: data is written to disk cache first, then migrated to tape, so reads are slower than active storage because the file has to be fetched back. Every file is written to two separate tapes automatically and all data is encrypted at rest. Allocations are granted in TB and carry an enforced limit on the number of files as well as the capacity.

For ACCESS credit exchange, there is an exchange ratio of 1,000 credits per 1TB of capacity.

File System

Directory	Path	Quota	Purge	Backup	Notes
Granite archive	/granite/nsf/access/<project-code>	See notes	Never purged	Not backed up	Granted in TB per allocation, with an enforced limit on file count as well as capacity. Bundle small files into large archives before transferring - you cannot bundle them once they are here

External Storage

Granite pairs with NCSA's Taiga active filesystem: work on Taiga or an HPC system, archive to Granite. Granite cannot be reached from inside a running job - stage data to Taiga first.

File Transfer Documentation

Granite has no data transfer node and no command-line transfer host. Use Globus for bulk moves between Granite and another system, or S3 through the Versity gateway for programmatic access and dataset sharing. Bundle small files into large archives on the source system before transferring - you cannot bundle them once they are on Granite.

Supported Methods	Data Transfer Node / Globus Collection	Notes
GLOBUS \| RECOMMENDED	NCSA Granite	Granite Access Methods - Globus
S3		Granite Access Methods - S3

Login to Granite

2FA/MFA required for login

Granite has no login node and no shell. You move data in and out with Globus or S3 - see [Granite Access Methods].

Granite authenticates against your NCSA identity, which is separate from your ACCESS identity. Create or manage it at [NCSA Account Portal], and enrol in NCSA Duo before your first login attempt.

Granite publishes no SSH public-key setup procedure, and there is no login node to install a key on. A keypair set up for another ACCESS resource does not apply here.

The one SSH-reachable host is a read-only quota reporter. It prints a table of your Taiga and Granite usage - block used, soft quota, hard limit, files used, inode soft and hard - and then disconnects immediately. It does not give you a shell, and there is nothing to run once connected. See [Granite Usage and Quota Controls].

SSH Login

$ ssh <ncsa-username>@storagequota.ncsa.illinois.edu

Get help with Granite NCSA Status Page

Granite

Get Support

GET AN ACCOUNT ON GRANITE

Storage Documentation

File System

External Storage

File Transfer Documentation