[jferrari]

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.

[Sylv]

Originally Posted by jferrari

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...

[akidess]

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

[jferrari]

Thank you for your advice.