Storing live data

The High Performance Computing service provided by Imperial College is available for all College researchers. The standard service is free at the point of use.

Post-docs, PhD and research postgraduate students should contact their group leader or supervisor who will be able to register you

The Research Data Store (RDS) is a central service for storing and collaborating on large volumes of research data. 

All research projects with a unique entry in the college's grant management system are entitled to 2TB of RDS allocation free of charge. If you need more space or you do not have an entry in the grants management system, there will be a cost.

Postdoctoral students and postgraduate research students can apply for access to the RDS. Access to the RDS groups work similarly to HPC access groups. A user can be added on selfservice to an RDS project and they will then have access to that project.

For more information on the RDS and pricing visit the Research Data Store webpage. 

The RDS cannot be used to store personally identifiable data. For advice on how to store and manage access to personal or sensitive data contact ICT Security. 

Postdoctoral students and postgraduate research students can apply for access to the TRE. In all cases, students will need an academic supervisor for their project, usually a PI or senior academic. The supervisor will apply for access on behalf of their student. The application will be reviewed before access to the TRE is granted.

Many researchers keep copies of their research data on personal laptops, external hard drives, USB sticks and other portable storage devices. These can provide a useful way of transporting or backing up data but should not be relied upon as a primary method of storage. This is because:

• data stored on USBs or hard drives can easily become corrupted;
• personal laptops or hard drives are at risk of being lost or stolen;
• portable storage devices can break or become faulty with use.

We would therefore recommend that you only use portable storage as a secondary storage option in conjunction with Imperial storage provision and that regular checks are carried out to ensure that any data held on personal devices are still accessible.  

Securely encrypt any sensitive or confidential data that is being kept on a personal device. For information about encrypting personal devices please see the Imperial ICT webpage.

There are a number of commercial cloud storage services available including Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud and others. Many provide a certain amount of free space before charging for extra storage. Whilst these services can seem convenient there are a number of factors to consider before using them.

• There is no guarantee that a commercial service will not be withdrawn or terminated. For instance, your account may be closed without notice if the company feels their service has been misused or if they encounter financial difficulties.
• It may not be apparent where your data is being stored. Some research data, particularly personal or patient data, must be stored within the EU and this cannot be guaranteed with commercial cloud storage options. Therefore commercial cloud storage is not suitable for patient data or other personally identifiable information.
• Backups may occur infrequently; different companies have different policies regarding how often they back up data. Depending on the provider it may also be impossible to retrieve earlier versions of a document.
• It is not always clear who can view and access the data. For example, under certain commercial cloud storage companies’ terms of service employees may have the right to access or even use your data. This should be a concern for all researchers, but is particularly important to bear in mind when dealing with personal, sensitive, or commercially valuable data.

We strongly recommend using Imperial maintained services rather than commercial cloud providers for the storage of research data. Commercial cloud storage should not be used to store sensitive or confidential data. For advice on how to store and manage access to personal or sensitive data contact ICT Security.