Local Working Directory /scratch

A local working directory /scratch is available at a local disk(s) of each worker node, and is intended for temporary files. Upon a job start, the batch system creates a unique subdirectory /scratch/condor/dir_ID/, which is accessible via the $_CONDOR_SCRATCH_DIR variable. When the job finishes, the subdirectory is automatically deleted. This way, the local working directory /scratch is continuously cleaned.

Very intensive I/O operations during the job's run can cause overload and slow response of the NFS server. We highly recommend to use the local /scratch to avoid these problems. The best practice is: read all input files from the NFS server only once when your job starts, use /scratch at a local disk of an assigned worker node as your working directory, and write all output files back to the NFS server when your job completes.