What files do you keep after a project?
 

I completed my thesis December 2012 and have over 40 GB of files. What does everyone typically keep from a successful run? What combination of files completely describes work completed while minimizing file size?

I have 6 transient runs, each using the pimpleDyMFoam solver.

this is how I do:
Assuming I do not want to restart my transient case in the future:

1. reconstruct all timestep
2. remove all files *_0 and phi in each timestep. If I want to restart my case in the future, I keep those files only in a few timesteps (the last one for example, or every 10 written timestep)
3. zip each timestep (0.3 -> 0.3.zip)
4. remove the unzipped timestep
5. do NOT remove the grid files, even if they are generate by OpenFOAM!
6. extrastep: zip grid data

A short bash script can run all those steps automatically.

You can also run steps 1, 2 and 4, than zip everything into one big zipfile, but the zipping might be quite long, and if your zip is corrupted, you loose everything...

Following up on what Marcel posted: If you use the compress option in your controlDict, there is no point in zipping your data. Use tar instead (or, if you really want a zip file, --compression-method store).

Also useful: pyFoamPackCase.py

Thank you for your advice.