Does MSI Protect Against Data Loss? Do I need backups?
You should always maintain independent backups of your critical data. However, MSI follows best practices in protecting your data from loss or corruption, and in general your data is quite safe. Both the High Performance Primary Storage (Panasas/VAST) and the Second Tier Storage (Ceph) are protected by a RAID-like system so that data is not lost in the event of hardware failure. However, this mechanism does not protect against errors in software or usage, such as accidental deletions.
In addition, group home directories on Primary Storage (VAST) are protected by scheduled snapshots. There is also tape backup of files you have copied to the disaster_recovery folder in your group's storage. This ensures that if you accidentally overwrite or delete an important file it is possible to restore your files to an earlier state.
While these systems use best practice security methods, they are not approved to support legally protected datasets. Please contact [email protected] if you have legally protected data storage or analysis needs.