Backing Up Your Data

Computer users can be grouped into two categories; those who have lost valuable data, and those who will lose valuable data. Backing up important data should be a serious ritual.

Critically important data should be stored in several locations and on a variety of storage media. Zip and floppy disks or flash drives should not be trusted; keep at least two copies!

BCF users who have 'Data Analysis & Processing or Microarray Analysis Lab' accounts are given storage space (100MB) on our PC file server (Brahms). This can be used as a backup location for small amounts of data.
This space can be reached by either PC or Mac users on the local network.
Please see: Mounting Home Folder

How you back up your data, and to where, depends largely on what platform you are using.

All Users

The easiest way to get to your files on Amadeus (BioDesk/Unix) is to use an SFTP(SSH) client such as SSH (Secure Shell) software that is available at no cost for all platforms from the campus site license site. Most versions of this software allow for easy drag-and-drop manipulation of your files to and from your Amadeus account.

Mac OSX users may want to look at Fugu.

 

PC Users

PC users will have the easiest time backing up their data. Amadeus is running Samba , a software suite that provides file services to SMB clients such as Windows(95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP). This service allows the user to map their user folder on Amadeus as a network drive on their local machine.
It is then an easy matter to copy files to and from Amadeus using the Windows Explorer.

For detailed instructions on using this service, please see our How to Set Up Samba page.

Mac Users

The best option for Mac users is Fetch; an FTP client program.
This is free for educational use but you will need to apply for access to the Educational use store.

Mac OSX users will have an easier time setting up and using SSH; previous Mac OS versions of SSH rely on Fetch.