System login and general usage

On the following pages we will give an overview about the usage of the archive, covering basics like login, and general usage, data transfers as well as the usage of the dmftar tool for optimal archiving.

Guidelines for storing data

The Data Archive is designed to store large amounts of data for long-term archiving. This means that there are a few guidelines we ask our users to follow to make optimal use of the system and keep performance to a maximum:

• Try to store files of significant size (> 1 GB) as much as possible. Smaller files will always be accepted, but will lower the performance of restoring your files from tape.
• If you have many small files, make sure to pack them using a file archiving tool like tar or dmftar.
• Try to pack your files before uploading them to the archive, possibly by using dmftar which allows remote tarring.
• Organise your files in such a way that in case the files are needed again only parts of the data set need to be restored from tape.
• Avoid storing unpacked software packages, these usually contain a lot of small files. Instead pack these as well, or refer to a specific software repository.

Data can survive your project

Normally, when a project is ended, the login and accompanying files are removed. You can arrange, however, that files in the archive are retained. Write an email to helpdesk@surfsara.nl for the details.