Managing Disk Space Ressources

[Juju]

Hello, Itried to analyse a model which is pretty big (15000 elements). The analysis failed''due to insufficient disk space". I think the temporary files fill completely my hard disk. My hard disk has 6 GB free, and it is not enough...


Is there a way to avoid such a problem ? What should I do, except buying a bigger hard disk?


Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[acook]

Hey Juju,

The only way to reduce the required hard disk space is to reduce the complexity of the model (thus reduce the number of elements required to accurately describe the model and loading), reduce the number of sequential passes that the solve makes per analysis, and/or lower the element edge order (thus less equations the solver has to solve and thus less disk space required). The largest factor is element edge order.

If you cannot perform any of the above steps, you will need to get a larger hard drive. ProM needs its room.

Hope this helps.

 

[Juju]

I d like to use all the Hard Disks of the PC...


According to what I have found in the Help, I am trying to use severals working directories for the temporary files to run the analysis without any problem of hard disk space.
By editing the command line in a Mechanica batch file, I specify the list of working directories with the -w option :


........ -w "C:\folder1":"D:\folder2" ...........


Then, when I try to run the batch file, it is not woking.



I also tried :


........ -w "C:\folder1" -w "D:\folder2" ...........


In this case, I can run the batch file but when "C:\folder1" is full, the analysis fails instead of using "D:\folder2".
What is wrong with what I am doing ?
Thank you and regards.

 

[acook]

Hey Juju,

**NOTE: The procedures outlined below
are for ProE and ProM Wildfire 2.0 M190. These procedures will work
within all builds of ProE and ProM Wildfire 2.0. This proceudre is almost identical within the Wildfire 1.0 releases. I am unsure about the Wildfire 3.0 release but it should
be very similar.**

I wouldn't bother with the ProM batch files. There is a way to set the directories for the temporary and the final output files within the Mechanica GUI.

Goto Analysis->Mechanica Analysis and Studies... . Select the desired analysis from the dialog that appears and goto Run->Settings. A "Run Settings" dialog will appear. Set the desired directories for the temporary and output files by clicking on their respective "folder" icons.

This procedure will allow you to change directories successfully. I have done this before.

Hope this helps.




Edited by: acook

 

[Juju]

yes, i used to don that, but by clicking on the ''folder'' icons, then you can only give one directory... and I want to use severals directories for the temporary files...

 

[acook]

Hey Juju,

I don't think think that you may have multiple working directories within any PTC software (ProE or ProM). Can you specificially tell me how to find this in the PTC ProM or ProE help (I cannot but I must admit I was never really good at finding information in there)?

In any case, this isn't a very good idea to store your temporary files in multiple places. Speaking purely from a computer logical standpoint, if you store your temporary files in multiple locations the computer will have to perform some sort of logic (which ProM may not be able to) to keep track of all of these files. Some of these files can get very large so storing them across different drives is not a good idea either. This same concept applies in ANSYS. You must have one single "working" directory to which very large temporary files are stored.

In summary, ProM needs its room, both in memory and disk space, and you need to give it both in my experience.

Hope this helps.