Where to keep your data: the AAE file share

Where you keep your data shapes how smoothly you can work across your own computer and LINCOMM (Linux Community Servers). The short version: keep one authoritative copy of your data on the AAE file share. This page explains why, and what that gives you.

The problem this solves

It's tempting to leave data wherever it lands — a folder on your laptop, or a working folder on whichever LINCOMM node you happened to use. That quickly turns into several copies in several places, and you lose track of which one is current. Worse, files left only on a single node aren't reachable from your own computer, and a node's local working space isn't the place for anything you can't afford to lose.

How it works

The AAE file share is storage that both your computer and LINCOMM can see at the same time. There is one copy of each file, in one place, reachable from either side:

• On LINCOMM, the share is already mounted. Your personal folder is at /mnt/aae/users/<netid>, and your group's shared space is the Research Drive at /mnt/rdrive/<PI netid>.
• On your own computer, you connect to the same share over the campus network, so the files appear like any other drive or folder.

Because it's the same storage on both sides, a file you save from your laptop is immediately there when you log in to LINCOMM — no uploading, no downloading, no second copy to keep in sync. This is what makes it practical to write and test a script on your computer and then run it on LINCOMM against the same data.

Why it's worth the habit

• One source of truth. One copy means no confusion about which version is current.
• Reachable from both places. The same files serve your local work and your LINCOMM jobs.
• Managed storage. The file share is maintained centrally, unlike a working folder on a single node, which is only as safe as that node.

Limitations and trade-offs

• If you see Permission denied when reaching /mnt/aae on LINCOMM, your access has expired. Renewing it with kinit usually fixes it — see Troubleshooting file share access on LINCOMM.
• Very large shared datasets belong on the Research Drive (/mnt/rdrive/<PI netid>) rather than your personal folder, so the whole group can use them.
• The share is reached over the network, so for jobs that read and write a file constantly, performance can vary. For most analysis work this isn't a concern.