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Using ResearchDrive

ResearchDrive is a University-funded and DoIT-provided data storage system available to all faculty PIs and academic staff with permanent PI status, and their research teams. Twenty-five terabytes of storage is provided on request to each PI, with the option to purchase additional storage at $120 per terabyte per year.

ResearchDrive is secure enough for most research data, but is not appropriate for data covered by HIPAA or other sensitive data. RestrictedDrive is a related service that is secure enough to store sensitive data, but it must be paired with secure computers for analyzing it like those provided by Silo.

ResearchDrive is easy to use: you can map a drive to it just like SSCC network drives, from your own computer or Winstat. Performance is generally comparable to SSCC drives as well. There are instructions available on accessing ResearchDrive from Linstat.

There are two primary advantages of ResearchDrive over SSCC network drives:

  • You don't need an SSCC account to use ResearchDrive, though you do need a UW NetID.
  • ResearchDrive is fully funded by the University, while hardware for data storage is one of SSCC's larger capital costs.

However, there are several disadvantages of ResearchDrive compared to SSCC network drives:

  • Users will need to map ResearchDrive, once on each computer they use, rather than it being mapped automatically.
  • PIs must manage permissions on ResearchDrive rather than SSCC staff (some may consider this an advantage).
  • SSCC staff can provide little support for ResearchDrive; you'll need to work with the  DoIT Help Desk .
  • ResearchDrive only retains backups of deleted files for one month, compared to a year for SSCC, and does not retain as many older versions of files.

Quotas and Pricing

ResearchDrive storage does have a quota limitation and additional storage space does cost money.

  • 25 TB of storage provided to each PI at no cost.
  • $120/TB per year for additional storage space and maintenance on ResearchDrive for PIs who need more than 25 TB (billed to DoIT number).

Based on these advantages and disadvantages, we would suggest using ResearchDrive for storing data that are not in active use (so you're less likely to need files restored from backup due to user error) or if you need to share files with UW-Madison researchers who don't have SSCC accounts and don't need them.

Backup and Restoring Files

The SSCC does not handle backups or restoring files from ResearchDrive. If you need to restore files from a backup, the article on restoring files or folders from snapshots has information and steps on how to restore files from ResearchDrive. If you need further assistance with restoring files from Research Drive, you will need to contact the ResearchDrive team at researchdrive@wisc.edu .

For more information on ResearchDrive or to request a drive, please see  Getting Started with ResearchDrive  .



Keywordsresearchdrive research drive storage   Doc ID102687
OwnerRussell D.GroupSocial Science Computing Cooperative
Created2020-05-31 10:22:44Updated2024-01-10 10:21:52
SitesSocial Science Computing Cooperative
CleanURLhttps://kb.wisc.edu/sscc/using-researchdrive
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