[GRASS5] grass database: where to put it

[Rich Shepard]

On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Helena Mitasova wrote:

> Where do you put your GRASS database on your system (say you expect it
> to have 10-20GB)
>
> here are some options that we have seen:
>
> /usr/local/share/grassdata
> /opt/grassdata
> /usr2/grassdata
> /data/grassdata
> /home/paul/grassdata

  If you have space on a particular partition or file system, use it. On our
network, I have an nfs-exported/mounted drive named /mnt/usr4/. One of the
filesystems on that drive is projects/. Under that I have data organized by
state and specific project.

  Non-project-specific data (that is, data not being used for a currently
active project) lives in /mnt/usr3/spatial-data/. Works well for us.

  I know of another installation where maps for a specific project are
distributed among different partitions and filesystems. Symbolic links are
created to put the appropriate maps in one "place" for a specific project or
analysis.

> Is there any reason why some of these options may be bad?

  No.

> Would it be different for a desktop at home and for a networked computer
> (e.g. under NFS) (assuming that at home there is a single user of that
> database and at work many people are using the database) Any other ideas
> what the "correct" place/partition should be for a big GRASS database?

  There's nothing in the HFS or LSB about data directories. IMO, your
question is analagous to asking about the better editor: emacs or vi. You'll
get passionate responses on all three sides of the question.

  Some SysAdmins like to have all system data on a separate partition; e.g.,
/data1, /data2 so it can be backed up as a unit. All processed words, spread
sheets, graphics and what-have-you are on those partitions. I tend to keep
my non-spatial data in /home/rshepard/data/. Under this I have
subdirectories for different types: wpdocs/, spreadsheets/, plots/, etc.
Accounting data is in the accounting filesystem.

  What I want to see in the next version of GRASS is the ability to have
data anywhere and access it either as the pwd or by specifying the path in
the startup screen. No more $GISBASE, LOCATION and MAPSET. Think of how
LyX/LaTeX, GRI or any other application finds its data and that's how I
believe GRASS should work.

> thank you for any input,

  Any time. :-)

Rich

Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President

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