ISS Scratch Storage Service

Scratch Storage Service

About the service

ISS provides a 'scratch' storage service for uses such as temporary storage for disk images, editing large media files and software package testing.

Access

If your school or department would like to make use of this service please email ISS Helpline including the following information.

  • The name you would like for your share e.g. 'issscratch'
  • Name of your School\Department Administrators Security group.
  • Contact email address.
  • Telephone extension.
  • A general idea of what you plan to use the share for.
  • Let us know how much space you would like.

Quotas

Quotas are negotiated by the Computing Officer with ISS. We can currently offer quotas of up to 1TB but with the caveat that we may reduce them to offer to others if the space is not being utilised.

Backups and data retention

  • There will be no backups made of the data on the service. Furthermore there is a 90 day retention set on all shares. Any files with a 'Created' timestamp equal to or greater than 90 days are automatically deleted.

Service Availability

  • Service is scheduled to be available 24/7/365 with the following exceptions.
  • When system maintenance is carried out this will usually be scheduled for ISS’s normal “At Risk” period, which is Tuesdays 0600-0900.
  • Some systems are automatically re-started for maintenance purposes between 02:00 and 05:00 on Wednesday Mornings, causing an outage of 10-15 minutes.

Notification of service interruptions

  • ISS publish Messages of the Day on the University Home pages; these are part of a comprehensive news publishing system. In the case of filestore and other infrastructure systems, MOTDs are reinforced by email messages sent to individual users who will be affected.

Support

  • All requests for support or advice should be made via the ISS Helpline.