RStor - Research Storage - Documentation
RStor - Research Storage
Documentation
What is RStor?
Short for Research Data Storage, RStor is a Research IT-provided, scale out network-attached storage platform by iXsystems called TrueNAS. It features massive scalability and is currently just over 900 terabytes (TB) in size. RStor provides access to high-volume, scalable storage of unstructured data for research needs. For data protection, the RStor system creates daily read-only point-in-time copies (snapshots) of files for 30 days. In addition, a nightly disaster recovery (DR) backup is taken of the entire system to a different location on campus.
Cost
RStor is $80 per terabyte per year. Billed at the beginning of the month for the previous month’s allocation, you will be charged approximately $6.67 per terabyte.
Increases can be requested any time (pending availability) and are charged at the same rate. Increases will be effective immediately and billed on the first day of the following month after an allocation change request.
Quota increase request form: RStor Quota Change Request : VPR Research IT Service Desk
Decreases are only allowed at the start of a new fiscal year.
By requesting a Storage Account and providing a Billing Account Number, you authorize Research IT to bill you monthly for your storage allocation to the provided account at the above-stated rate via a KFS Service Billing.
Creating a Storage Account
College IT administrators request a new Storage Account in RStor by filling out this service request:
RStor New College/Org Provisioning Request Form : VPR Research IT Service Desk
General researchers and scientists do not directly create accounts; having only IT Administrators with this access allows them to coordinate and maintain all storage needs for their areas. Only those pre-authorized IT Admins have access to add/edit storage accounts.
RStor Quotas, Usage, and Historical Billing is available here: https://rstor.research.colostate.edu/
Subdividing/subleasing your space
Storage account owners are free to create subfolders in their storage accounts. You can control access to subfolders through your preferred methods (see below for access specifics).
Your Storage Account's overall/billed quota applies to your_root_folder, and that quota can have a quota-warning value and recipient email.
Quotas can also be applied to the first level of subfolders. As illustrated in this diagram, subfolder1 and subfolder2. Each can have a warning-quota value and one recipient email address for warnings. (If you need more than one recipient, enter an alias or shared mailbox or other.)
We cannot apply quotas below the first level (i.e., nothing for data, documents, stuff, morestuff, or otherstuff).
Single accounts preferred per college/area
It is preferred that each college/area create just one storage account and manage subfolders and access to those subfolders (and any intra-college billing) internally.
Access Specifics
When we create your storage account, you will receive a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path, such as:
\\Campusrstor1.onefs.colostate.edu\YOUR-ACCT
You can control access to your storage account with Grouper. When we create a storage account for you, we will also create a Grouper group for you, which you can manage at https://grouper.colostate.edu. You can add NetIDs and use either colostate Active Directory (like you might do with Exchange Coordinator groups) or your own child domain Universal groups to assign file permissions using Windows tools.
Several users are only using the Grouper group for root-level admin control and use Universal Windows groups in their child domain to provide access to other users.
Data Recovery & Snapshots
RStor takes daily snapshots and the best way to access these is connecting to your share with Windows, and making use of the "Previous Versions" feature built into Windows File Explorer.
RStor's daily snapshots expire after 30 days from the day they were taken.
RStor's daily snapshots are taken at the root of your file space only, so if you delete a subfolder it won't be gone from your daily snapshots until 30 days have passed from the day of deletion.
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