Account archival

By "Account archival" we mean the taking of a specific copy of a users home directory, on some medium, with the intention that it will last forever and could be restored at any point in the future.

The simple fact is that we do not do this for any computer accounts or general data. We do take regular backups of accounts for disaster recovery purposes, but we do not "archive" someone's home directory prior to deletion.

Anyone (staff/students/visitors etc) who is leaving Informatics is encouraged to take their own copy of their files before they leave. Data which is to be shared or used by someone else after their departure should be moved to some communal area, for example group file space or a subversion repository.

For larger research data sets (hundreds of GB or more) we can provide tape copies. However we can't make guarantees about how long we may be able to re-read those tapes, as tape technology changes. Currently we are using LTO-8 tapes which hold 12TB of raw data, and cost around £70.

Certain specific data is archived, such as fourth year undergraduate projects and PhD thesis submissions. These are dealt with via specific procedures managed by Informatics Student Services, and you should see their pages for more information on these.