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+# Where to keep your data
+
+Let's start by offering some advice on where _not_ to keep your data:
+
+ * in your git/hub/lab repo because:
+  * your repo will bloat
+  * you may accidentally publish it via github/gitlab
+  * every time you make new or save new data git will try to synch it with your repo. This will _hammer_ your internet connection and make your git commit process almost unusuable
+  * github/gitlab will refuse to store data of any useful size
+ * on Dropbox/Sharepoint/oneCloud/whatever or similar because:
+  * every time you make new or save new data your Dropbox/Sharepoint/oneCloud/whatever will try to synch it. This will _hammer_ your internet connection
+ * only on your laptop/PC because:
+  * they crash and you'll lose it
+  * you'll lose it and someone could find/steal/disclose it
+ * on a usb drive because
+  * see previous
+ 
+OK, so where _should_ you keep your data? There are basically two types of places:
+ 
+  * an institutional file store to which you have access
+  * a cloud data service to which you can send your code such as AWS, google etc
+  
+For most of you the first option may be the only one available for institutional policy reasons. In the case of the University of Southampton you should [read the policy on data storage](https://library.soton.ac.uk/researchdata/storage) including the advice on how to store and transfer data securely. Our suggested options are:
+ 
+ * your [personal filestore](https://knowledgenow.soton.ac.uk/Articles/KB0011651) which, by default, _only_ allows 50GB or 
+ * the research filestore (**preferred**) which is accessible via the [web](https://fwa.soton.ac.uk/), via SMB (i.e. `J:\` drive (AKA `\\soton.ac.uk\resource\`) - use the VPN) and, in the case of SERG data, via `/mnt/SERG_data` on the University's RStudio server.
+ 
+ We recommend you use the research filestore because it can hold much larger data volumes and can be made accessible to your colleagues/supervisors if required. For reasons of speed this implies you either:
+ 
+  * mount the filestore/J: drive on your laptop/PC and use a local version of (e.g.) RStudio to load the data. If you are doing this you might want to learn about [drake][drake.md] so the data is only loaded over the network the first time you run your code, not each time.
+  * 
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