OIT offers researchers several research data storage options depending on their storage needs and data requirements. For data storage requests beyond the scope of current storage availability, OIT can help researchers find cost-effective cloud or alternative data storage options.
CHPC and UAHPC Data Storage
OIT provides each user 50GB/500GB storage in /home/ and /bighome/. UAHPC and CHPC also share a ~1500 TB usable Panasas Ultra storage array for additional near-line storage. Faculty may purchase up to 100TB (based on availability) on the Panasas at $50/TB/year. Faculty may also choose to purchase a storage node. Bighome storage is purged every 30 days.
| System | RAW Capacity | Usable Capacity |
|---|---|---|
| Capstone Ceph SSD/NVMe | 124.8 TB | 91 TB |
| Capstone Master HDD | 120 TB | 89.1 TB |
| Capstone PixStor HDD | 1.288 PB | 950 TB |
| Compellent | 1.85 PB | 1.62 PB |
| Icebox | 1.53 PB | 1.18 PB |
| Panasas | 1.75 PB | 1.5 PB |
| CIROH SSD | 144 TB | 119.1 TB |
| Total capacity | 6.81 PB | 5.55 PB |
Cluster-Attached Storage Solutions
| Solution | Supported Project Size | Backup | $/TB/Year | Funded by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /home | 50GB | Local + Off-site | Free | OIT |
| /bighome | 500GB | Nonea | Free | OIT |
| /scratch | 20TB | Noneb | Free | OIT |
| Panasas Ultra | <100TB | Nonea | $50 | Faculty, OIT |
| Storage Node | <100TB | None | ~$12c | Faculty |
a Two weeks of daily snapshots
b No snapshots, after 30 days untouched files will be removed automatically
c Slow, legacy storage
Computing nodes also contain their own local temp storage as “/state/partition1”. The capacity of local temp storage varies from node to node on UAHPC due to the condo-funded model (250 GB – 1TB). Local temp storage of nodes on CHPC is consistently higher: ~15TB.
Research Data Storage
OIT provides additional long-term storage at low cost to any tenure-track faculty, designated research center, department, or principal investigator on a research grant. The link to the storage hosting request form is available at the bottom of OIT’s Hosting Services page. Enterprise storage comes with a standard daily off-site backup with 15 days of retention. This means that when you need 1TB of local storage, you really are asking for 2+TB total storage and the backup services.
OIT has currently deployed “Icebox” @ 1180 TB NAS storage array to provide a lower-cost option for commodity storage with no replicated backup. For >100TB storage requests, OIT can help the researcher engage Microsoft to purchase storage in UA’s Azure cloud environment.
Limited storage at no cost is available to UA faculty, staff, and students via Microsoft OneDrive and UABOX. OIT is currently evaluating alternative cloud and on-premises low-cost research storage options.
Additional Research Storage Solutions
| Solution | Use | Quota | Notes | $/TB/Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft OneDrive | Research, Collaboration, Pedagogy | 5 Tb | 100 Gb max file size upload; includes one cloud copy | Quota free |
| UA Box | Research, Collaboration | 5 Tb | 15 Gb max file size upload | Quota free |
| UA Enterprise Storage | Full backup/off-site recovery | Based on availability; <20 Tb | Includes 1 full off-site copy; limited capacity; PII storage available | $100/Tb/Year |
| Panasas Ultra (PanFS) – Commodity | Commodity research | <100 Tb | No copy, RAID redundancy | $50/Tb/Year |
| Panasas Ultra (PanFS) – HPC | HPC-Attached | 50 Gb /home, 500 Gb /bighome, <20 Tb 30-day scratch | No copy, RAID redundancy | Quota free; $50/Tb/Year additional |
| OuRRstore Tape Archive (OSCER) | Long term (Glacial) data archiving | n/a | Must upload data; 20-200 Gb recommended file size | $60/12 Tb LTO Tape |
| UAResCloud (Microsoft GovCloud) | Restricted Data (CMMC, CUI) | 5 Tb (OneDrive) | Sponsored Projects engagement required | Quota free |
| *BeeGFS Array* (expected Q1 ’23) | Commodity research | <100 Tb | No copies | TBD |
Research Data Management Plans
OIT, the Office for Research and Economic Development, and the Office of Sponsored Programs have partnered to assemble tools to facilitate the development of appropriate research data management plans for research grant proposals.
Visit the UA Office for Research & Economic Development website for more information.
Data Archiving (OuRRstore)
As an EPSCoR member, UA has access to University of Oklahoma’s OU & Regional Research Storage (OURRStore) tape archiving platform. Please contact OIT for details on using OURRStore for your research data archiving.
Researcher-purchased Storage Arrays
OIT provides data center hosting services for Researcher-purchased storage arrays at the Gordon Palmer data center. See OIT Hosting Services for details.