Huge data uploads from LHC@home?

drnickriviera

Platinum Member
Jan 30, 2001
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Did some searching around but couldn't find any info on data traffic, so sorry for my DC noobness if this has been documented. Comcast sent an email saying i'm at 75% of my monthly cap. The only thing i've done different is start running BOINC with LHC and MLC. A little looking around and it seems that LHC is the problem. I'd estimate it has uploaded 700GB in 2 weeks. Is that normal?
 

Skillz

Senior member
Feb 14, 2014
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I haven't ran LHC in a long time, but IIRC those tasks are pretty big; but I didn't think they were that big.

You only have 1 host correct?
 

Icecold

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2004
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LHC tasks are massive, both download and upload. I was very surprised to see how large the tasks were, the native tasks were something like 200 MB each that uploaded. If running vbox tasks I think some of the downloads are a couple GB even. It definitely uses a ton of data, more than any other project that I've observed.
 

Skillz

Senior member
Feb 14, 2014
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Running this project on an SSD long term probably wouldn't be a good idea if that's how much data it transfers for each task.
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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Just to let you know... I have comcast, and there is no monthly cap on my plan. It ends up being about $155 for landline phone, TV (a lot of channels , but no premium) and 25/500 upload/download.
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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Standard Comcast/Xfinity home Internet in many places has a 1.2TB "soft" cap and then they charge extra for additional data usage. Unlimited data usually costs an additional $30 per month.

Still, it's hard to imagine LHC using up 700 GB in two weeks with just one computer running it...
 
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drnickriviera

Platinum Member
Jan 30, 2001
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Two computers running it. Did a quick test this morning with 1 rig and windows said it transferred 2GB in 2.5hrs. I switched to MLC after that and it used 500MB in 10 hrs. I can deal with that. Be nice if LHC gave you some warning that it was data intensive

Yup i'm on the standard comcast. I normally only use 300-400GB a month.

I assume that if I tell the BOINC client to limit the network traffic to say 100GB a month, that it would just stop after it hit that limit?

Thanks for the help all. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't something else causing it or something I configured wrong.
 

Skillz

Senior member
Feb 14, 2014
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I've never used it since I'm on unlimited data, but I think BOINC does MB per day. So if you set it to 3400 MB per day that'll keep you right at your 100GB limit.
 

StefanR5R

Elite Member
Dec 10, 2016
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I haven't run LHC@home for a long while. But from what I read, it's network intensive to an extent that some folks tend to set up an HTTP proxy server for LHC@home data. Although that of course only helps with portions of the downloads, not with uploads.

According to the 2nd post in the linked thread, a proxy server is even already helpful if there is just one single computer but with a modern core count running LHC@home on respectively many threads.

PS:
Remember, except for Sixtrack, all other LHC@home applications use LHC's cluster filesystem to transfer most of their data (either hidden in the VirtualBox VM, or set up explicitly for the native application versions). This happens outside of BOINC. That is, you don't see these parts of the traffic in the BOINC client's logs and statistics.
 
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