For what purpose
Mass storage differs from traditional data storage on personal computers by the amount of data that can be stored and the expected performance for data transfer. While a current 'mainstream' external hard drive offers capacity ranging from one to three our four terabytes, mass storage can accommodate hundreds of terabytes on much more reliable media. The CISM storage machines house a hundred hard drives of 'enterprise' quality, designed to run around the clock for 4 to 5 years. These disks are organized so as to allow some redundancy in the storage of the data, in order to compensate for the possible loss of one or more disks.
For whom
The mass storage service is for all researchers who need storage of large volumes of data in close proximity to computing tools. At CISM, the largest consumers of storage are the researchers of ELIC, who store climate data at high spatial and temporal resolutions. At the unversity level, the departments that host the largest data bases are CP3 with data from the LHC at CERN, and ELIE with their satellite images, two entities with which CISM is actively collaborating.
Equipment
We operate several Network-Attached Storage systems (NAS) that are configured so as to appear as a single unit. Read more on the storage systems...
Members of UCLouvain can see the graphs of the monthly amount of TB stored on the servers.Access
Read more on how to request access...
Costs
Usage is billed by the volume of data stored on the system. Read more about the costs...