Data storage services available

This page provides a list of common data storage services, and can help you select the right service for the type of data you have (see Data organization). But before we talk about services, you have to consider what your needs are.

Types of data

There are different broad categories of data:

  • Code/papers drafts/: These are absolutely critical, but quite small. You want a full history that is easy to use, too. Put in version control and in Aalto gitlab.

  • Original data: Your original, irreplaceable data. You want this in two places: a fast, large, available place for day-to-day work, and also somewhere backed up for a fairly long time.

  • Intermediate working files: This is what you get when you run code on original data. It’s OK if this is lost, because you have the code and original data to re-create it, right? It can go in the large, fast location.

  • Final published results/data: You want this backed up and available for a very long time (forever?). Put in an open-access repository such as Zenodo. Once it’s in the archival, backups should be done there.

O = good, x = bad

Large

Fast

Confidential

Frequent backups

Long-term archival

Code

OO

OO

Original

O

O

OO?

OO

OO

data

Intermediate

OO

OO

OO?

files

Final

OO

results/open

data

Service index

There are different qualities we want in filesystems: large, fast, confidential, highly available, backed up, mounted everywhere, lasts forever. It is expensive to have all of these together, so there are different places with different benefits. It is up to you to balance their use so that you can accomplish what you need. Compare this table to the types of data above. Use the right place for the right data.

You often need to use different types of services, for example version.aalto.fi for day to day code management, but archive to Zenodo at the end of a project.

O = good, x = bad

Large

Fast

Confidential

Backups

Long-term archival

Shareable

Triton

scratch

OO

OO

O

x

x

O

work

OO

OO

O

x

x

Triton home

x

O

OO

Local disks

O

OO

O

ramfs

OOO

OO

Depts

/m/…/project

O

O

OO

OO

O

/m/…/archive

O

O

OO

OO

O

O

Aalto

Aalto home

OO

OO

Aalto work

O

O

OO

OO

O

Aalto teamwork

O

O

OO

OO

O

Aalto laptops

x

x

X

Aalto webspace

OO

version.aalto.fi

OO

OO

O

OO

ACRIS

O

O

Eduuni

Aalto Wiki

Finland

Funet filesender

O

OO

CSC cPouta

O

O

O

CSC Ida

OOO

x

OO

O

O

FSD

OO

O

OO

O

Public

github

x

OO

Zenodo

OO

OO

Google drive

x

O

OneDrive

Own computers

x

x

x

Emails

x

x

x

EUDAT B2SHARE

O

O

O

Service details

Note

This list is still under development (2018-03-07)

In general, if you need to

  • archive and open, consider hosting data on Zenodo (and put a record of it in ACRIS, so you can get internal Aalto credit. If you have a discipline-specific repository, use that instead (with metadata still in ACRIS)

  • For day to day work within Aalto, Aalto network drives are a good service and (different options below).

  • For making a data management plan, DMPTuuli along with our info is good.

Science-IT services

  • The filesystems by Triton. Primarily scratch and work, which are very large, very fast on Triton, but only for scratch data because they are not backed up.

Departments

  • CS,NBE,PHYS provide storage logically divided into project and archive. These are the counterparts of Triton and are backed up. They are actually Aalto “teamwork”, but the departments do the day-to-day interfacing. See Filesystem details.

  • See the work and teamwork notes below in the next section. In some cases, these are managed by departments.

Aalto

  • See Filesystem details.

  • Also information is available from Aalto ITS, some here.

  • Aalto home directories are small and intended mainly for personal stuff. Once you leave, this data dies, so don’t put important stuff here.

  • Aalto has work and teamwork storage systems. These are actually provided at the Aalto level, but how you request space, how you use them, and what the are called varies and is not always very well defined. A little bit of info at Filesystem details.

  • Aalto laptops are not a good place to store data because they are usually not backed up, and data is not shareable. (Even if data is backed up, once you leave, no one will even be able to get access). Most people who use laptops have the most valuable data stored on network drives.

  • Aalto webspace can share data. See Filesystem details. This isn’t suitable for archival or long-term anything, since it is tied to user accounts. If you want to share here, maybe you could do a bit more work and handle it forever at Zenodo?

  • https://version.aalto.fi is the Aalto Gitlab. It is used for small version controlled files. It is a great place for day to day work of private files, but not for permanent archival. See Aalto Gitlab.

  • ACRIS is the Aalto “research information system”, meaning it’s a record of things that everyone is doing research-wise. You should make records for datasets there as a research output. (ACRIS + research data instructions)

    Summary: try to host the actual data elsewhere, but always make a report of the data in ACRIS so you get credit.

    ACRIS has support for storing data itself, but that isn’t recommended most of the time since ACRIS in it’s current form isn’t guaranteed to stay around forever. However, if data needs to be kept internal, it might be OK since you can set confidentiality and share with certain people. However, you should always make a report of your datasets in ACRIS even if they are hosted elsewhere, so that you can get academic credit for it.

    What data sets should be included in ACRIS? We think: a) anything that is independently published with DOI. b) any paper which serves as a formal dataset description in a data journal, even if there is also an entry as an ACRIS article. c) any paper which serves as an informal dataset description.

    As for different roles: creator=who is involved in creating it, distributor=who can be contacted about access (if not public), owner=who has ultimate responsibility (often the PI but project dependent).

  • Eduuni is a Finnish service for educational collaboration. It’s reported to be more secure than either Google Drive or OneDrive, but we know of few people who use it.

  • The Aalto Wiki is sometimes mentioned as a place to store data. It’s really better for collaboration, but you can put little bits of data there if you want.

Finnish services

  • The FUNET filesender (https://filesender.funet.fi) can share files with others. You log in with your Aalto account, and then you can upload files and send a link by email. Or, you can send an email that allows others to upload. Run by CSC and recommended for sharing (instead of email).

  • IDA, Etsin, and AVAA are CSC-provided services (funded by the ministry as part of the Open Science project, ATT), which provide some data services to researchers.

    • Etsin is the Finnish metadata catalog. The intention is that all research data eventually gets cataloged here (open or not), but we are quite far from that goal. Ideally, there would be bidirectional imports to and from ACRIS (the Aalto system) and other repositories, but it’s not there yet. We should recommend that you make a note of your data here, but realistically do ACRIS and wait for a link.

    • IDA is a storage service. (instructions) It is based on iRODS, a data management layer on top of filesystems. Thus, you have to access it using a special API, command line interfaces, or other tools. Because of this, the learning curve is very steep. Currently, we think IDA would be good if your university doesn’t provide large enough free, properly backed up storage that is shareable within Finland. For long-term public storage, Zenodo is probably overall easier to use. We have some practical notes on using it here, because it takes quite a few steps to get started.

      It is said to be a safe place to store your data, but if you read closely a different “long-term preservation” service is coming, so IDA isn’t that. IDA might have a use case for confidential data which can’t leave Finland, but it says it claims it is not suitable for such. They also say that metadata “shall” be added, which makes you think it is only for data which is prepared enough for putting in Etsin.

      If you are dealing with a large amount of data and want to use an API to handle it, this could be good.

      IDA is being renewed in 2018, and will need reevaluation then.

    • AVAA is basically a merging of IDA and Etsin. You can set some metadata in IDA so that your data is available via the web. There are some instruction in the IDA user guide (browser, command line). Overall, having to use three different services for publishing a file takes a fair amount of work, so if you want to open data, Zenodo is faster.

  • The FSD Finnish Social Data Archive / Tietoarkisto is run from the University of Tampere. It is a full-service archive for social data, so they can help in data preparation and curation.. It is one of the few places in Finland allowed to archive personally identifiable data.

  • DMPTuuli (dmptuuli.fi) is a service for making data management plans. It is primarily targeted at funder DMPs, so it won’t help you plan your actual research (and even for funder DMPs, you need to know what to say). You can check our data management plans page, including the “emergency DMP” section. Aalto also has a little bit of guidance.

EU services

  • Zenodo (https://zenodo.org) is a long-term data repository. It is the largest (thus the most stable long-term) and also has a great user interface. You get a DOI if you archive here. We recommend this service unless you have another domain-specific repository that fits your data better. If you publish data here, also make a metadata entry in ACRIS (see above).

    Zenodo is a good service, but there is little curation, so you need to make sure that your data is described well (both in the structured catalog information and within the data, so that it is usable).

    When you put data in Zenodo, also make an ACRIS dataset entry linked with the DOI.

  • EUDAT (https://eudat.eu) provides a lot of different services: B2share is a lot like Zenodo, but smaller and last we checked the user interface wasn’t as good (and it didn’t provide DOIs). B2Drop is a Dropbox-like file sharing service (powered by nextcloud), which can be quite nice. B2Find is a metadata catalog that lets you search for data. The other services are mostly target to other large infrastructures. (EUDAT will be re-evaluated in 2018)

Global services (with special Aalto support)

  • Google Drive is a cloud storage solution (but you probably already knew that…). You can register your Aalto account as a Google account, which gives you unlimited storage (note that this does not mean your personal account gets unlimited… a Gsuite account does. This account ends when you leave Aalto, so this should not be used for permanent storage). You have to enable your account using ITS instructions here. Access the Aalto Google Drive from https://gdrive.aalto.fi. This service can be great for sharing, but because it is tied to your Aalto account, you should not store valuable research data here.

    Google Drive (organizations only) has a “shared drive” concept, which will allow you to put data into groups which can easily be inherited as time goes on, even if the original people move on.

  • Microsoft OneDrive is like Google Drive, and Aalto has a special agreement. You can find instructions from ITS here. Theoretically, OneDrive has a higher security rating than Google Drive, but it is still not suitable for legally confidential data.

  • Dropbox is like the above two. You can find ITS instructions here. You can sign up using a detailed procedure there. Again, this isn’t suitable for confidential/personal data, and everything vanishes once you leave Aalto.

Global services

  • Github is a code-sharing and collaboration service (using git, obviously). If you have an open source project, this is a well-known place to put it. The only downside is if you have objections to proprietary services. Github should not be used as a permanent archive, but there is Zenodo integration so that your code can be archived permanently (and even has integration with the Github “release” feature).

This is by no means a complete list…