Storage and Data Protection

All FBRI network-based storage is protected.  Research data is housed on an enterprise-class network storage platform which provides 3.9+ petabytes of storage and is protected in the following manner: 

Local / On-site Protection: 

• Micro snapshots: Taken every 30 minutes, kept for 6 hours. 
• Hourly snapshots: Taken every six hours, kept for 7 days.
• Weekly snapshots: Taken once a week, kept for 10 weeks. 
• Monthly snapshots: Taken once a month, kept for 2 years.

Off-site Protection: 

• Replication: All Lab, Project, Admin, Home, and Archive data is replicated to secure FBRI storage located on main campus in Blacksburg. 
  • All adds/deletes/changes are replicated in real time. 
• Offsite snapshots: 
  • Taken once a day, kept for one week.  
  • Taken once a week, kept for 12 weeks.

Disaster Recovery: In the event of a catastrophic or system impacting event on the Roanoke campus, the replicated data in Blacksburg can be made accessible and useable until the Roanoke-based systems are brought back online.  

This includes, but is not limited to: 

• Home Directories (U: drive)
• Lab Shares (L: drive)
• Project Shares (S: drive)
• Admin and Shared Drives (Z: drive)
• EFS Drives (X: drive)

NOTES:

• Snapshot and backup retention times are determined by the amount of data backed up and the amount of storage available.  As we can grow the system capacity, retention times will increase.  
• Data stored on the network is backed up and protected.  FBRI does not backup or protect data stored locally on workstations.  All data accessed and associated file and folder operations taking place on FBRI network storage is captured in logs residing on a central logging facility.