SURFS is a short to medium term storage solution for shared research data at UMN
SURFS by MSI offers short to medium-term storage for UMN's shared research facility data, ensuring direct delivery to MSI users for one year. UMGC, the pioneering facility, benefits from SURFS for distributing genomic sequencing data.
About SURFS
Much of the data analysis conducted on MSI’s high-performance computing resources uses data gathered from UMN shared research facilities (SRFs). In recognition of the need for short to medium term storage for this data, MSI provides a service, Shared User Research Facilities Storage (SURFS), enabling SRFs to deliver data directly to MSI users. By providing a designated location for this data, MSI can focus data backup and other processes to these key datasets. As part of this service, MSI will provide the storage of the data for one year from its delivery date.
It's expected that the consumers of these data sets will be responsible for discerning which data they may wish to keep past the 1-year term, and finding an appropriate place to keep it. There are several possible storage options both at MSI and the wider university. You can explore your options using OIT’s digital storage options chooser tool.
If you think your research facility could benefit from the SURFS service, please contact the MSI Helpdesk.
Current UMN facilities using SURFS
The University of Minnesota Genomics Center (UMGC) is the first shared research facility on campus to make use of SURFS to distribute genomic sequencing data sets to their many research groups. If you are associated with UMGC and are unfamiliar with accessing sequencing data in SURFS, go to UMGC data at MSI. If you need to see options for preserving expiring UMGC data releases see this page.