Data Storage Agreement Information

Data Storage Agreement Information

For those that purchase storage from us, these are the terms and conditions under which we operate:

  • Storage Usage Duration

    • Space will be made available for a period of three years at a rate of $1,500 per terabyte. At that time a review will be conducted of the storage system hardware to see if it continues to meet overall reliability standards. If it does, a follow up review will be performed after an additional one year. In no case will the storage hardware be kept for longer than four years.

    If the current storage hardware is deemed unfit, the hardware will need to be upgraded and the storage user will be charged at the current storage rate. We anticipate this rate to be the same or lower than the current rate of $1,500 per terabyte although no guarantee can be made at this time. If the storage user does not or cannot pay the new storage fee they will have to make arrangements to move their data off of the storage server within a maximum of 30 days. IDRE/RCT personal are available to assist you with moving your data.

  • Backups

    • Backups will be performed on all storage purchased under this agreement, unless other arrangements are made between IDRE/RCT and the user. Since this is a shared resource, we ask that storage users limit themselves to 1,000,000 files per terabyte of storage. Multiple small files drastically affect the backup and recovery of your data so stay as close to this ratio as possible.

    Additional information related to backups and recovery of your data is:

    • Three copies of each file in your home directory storage are retained in our tape backup system, the most current and the two most current files preceding it. Most current is defined by last activity on the file. Once you deleted a file you have 30 days to recover it. After 30 days no copy of the file is left on the backup system.

    • Every effort will be made to restore lost data as quickly as possible. The amount of data, number of files, other activity on the backup system and workload of the IDRE RCT Systems Group are all factors that can impact recovery time. We ask that you do not abuse this service, as the recovery procedure is disruptive to other ongoing operations.

    • As long as you continue to pay for your storage your data will be retained on our storage server and backup system (as long as you don't delete it). At the termination of your storage agreement with us you must remove you data within 30 days. After 30 days we will delete your data from our storage and backup systems and there is no way to recover it once this happens.

Last updated: 13Aug2009