Storage and backup

At MUHS there are various options for storing data from research and other day-to-day work. Storage options at MUHS are briefly explained below. Please note the respective terms of use for the linked offers.

If you need more information on storing your research data or have special requirements, please contact us for advice.

Sciebo - also known as hochschulcloud.nrw - offers easily accessible cloud storage where data can be synchronised across multiple computers and easily shared with others. The principle is similar to that of commercial services such as Dropbox or Google Drive, but synchronisation takes place via servers in NRW; there is usually also a copy of the data on your computer. By default, you have 30 GB of storage space available, but you can also get several TB of storage space within so-called project boxes.

Sciebo is suitable for a lot of everyday work data, especially if the data you store there is not extremely large. If you use Sciebo regularly, we recommend installing the desktop client on your end devices. The web interface is also suitable for occasional use.

The ZIM offers storage via network drives. Here you can store data that is integrated into your computer as a drive and is visible. However, the data is stored centrally and securely on the ZIM infrastructure. Unlike with Sciebo, you integrate this storage on your end device as a drive and the data is not additionally synchronised on your device by default.

Every institute at MUHS has access to up to 5 TB as a network drive from ZIM free of charge - more storage can be purchased additionally. You can also store data from your daily work here, whereby even very large and rapidly changing files are no problem. However, it is not possible to share data with people outside your workgroup.

The network drive is also particularly suitable for backing up data and for the long-term storage of internal data.

Ideally, you should publish your research data in a public repository after completing the associated work so that it can be reused by other researchers. We recommend giving preference to subject-specific and large general repositories such as Zenodo because the data is easier to find. In addition, you can use the public repository of the MUHS ‘ResearchData’. The data you deposit here will be provided with a DOI and are publicly available and citable worldwide.

The internal repository ResearchArchive enables long-term storage of research data and sharing with other researchers within MUHS. Each working group can apply to use 1TB of storage space free of charge to securely store their research data for 15 years. The data can be annotated with metadata and identified via a unique address. The data stored in ResearchArchive can be shared with other researchers at MUHS via granular rights management. This enables researchers to share their data with others in a secure and controlled manner in order to promote scientific exchange and the reusability of their own data.