Faculty and Grads

Large Disk Space Backup Options

Protect your work!

Home directory disk space must be limited, in order for us to provide reliable tape backups.

Your desktop, and most other machines you have access to may have significant amounts of disk space available under /var/tmp.

Storing important data under /var/tmp, on your desktop or other machines, is risky. Disks die, systems are upgraded, bad things happen.

We strongly suggest you make copies of your data.

Your backup strategy should take into account how you use your data: do you just need a periodic snapshot? How often? How much data?

Techstaff can often provide hardware for Grad desktops at no charge.
Just email us at techstaff@cs.uchicago.edu with your request.

Backup Options

  • Copy to another /var/tmp
    • Still risky, groups of machines can get upgraded at once.

  • Burn to dvd

  • Extra internal drives
    • We can often add more internal disks to your desktop.

  • Firewire external drive
    • We can install a firewire interface on your desktop if you have an external drive.

  • Disk on a shelf
    • We can copy your data to an internal disk you can keep on a shelf.

  • Project Space
    • We have a certain amount of networked project space.
    • Depending on size, we may be able to provide tape backups.
    • We recommend using a version control system such as subversion or cvs.