Storage and backup

Data management plan

Employing good storage and backup practices during your project can help to prevent potential data loss and unauthorised access. Whether you are collecting new data or accessing existing data, you need to consider where data will be stored, who will have access to the data and how they will be able to access the data.

Your data management plan should describe where you plan to safely and securely store your active research data. This includes where you will store backups of your data, how often you will back it up, and, if necessary, how you plan to encrypt any confidential data.

Storage options

Researchers at the University must ensure that data is stored safely, securely and protected from loss, as set out in the Research Data Management Policy. You should take steps to ensure your chosen data storage methods comply with the University’s Information Security Policy, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), funder requirements, and any commitments made in consent forms.

The UK Data Service has excellent guidance available on data storage, security and back up.

There are active data storage options available to you at the University.

SharePoint

The University's cloud storage option, Microsoft SharePoint, is recommended for storing research data in most cases. Integration with Teams makes creating a SharePoint site an excellent choice for collaboration with other project members, even when they are external to the University. New sites are typically set up with 1 TB of storage available.

You should ensure that your site is set to private and invite only collaborators who will require have access to the data stored within the site. For sensitive data, you should take steps to encrypt and password protect individual files stored within the site.

OneDrive

Microsoft OneDrive is another option available to Salford researchers. This is a good choice for projects which will require less file sharing and collaboration with different project members. For sensitive data, you should take steps to encrypt and password protect individual files stored on your OneDrive.

The Library provides online help and guidance for using University storage systems.

Not recommended

• Portable storage media (e.g. CDs, USB sticks) are vulnerable to loss or damage
• Third party cloud storage (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox) does not come with the same data protection assurances as the University’s SharePoint system
• Local storage (e.g. C: drive) is vulnerable to damage and not automatically backed up

These options should not be relied upon for storing your primary copy of important, active research data. The loss of any sensitive data must be reported as quickly as possible to the Digital IT Service Desk.

If you decide to use external storage devices to store backups, you must contact DIT via the Service Desk.

Data backup

Regularly backing up your data is an essential part of research data management. Backups can protect against data loss which might occur due to hardware failure, software faults, power failure and human error.

It is generally recommended that you make two, or even three, backups of research data. Copies should be stored on at least two different storage media and, where possible, one copy should be stored off-site.

You should consider how often you make changes to your data, and which amount of data you are prepared to lose between backups. Consider how often you will perform full backups (backing up all your data) and incremental backups (only the data that have changed since the last backup).

The UK Data Service has further information about backing up your data.

Costs

There may be costs associated with the storage and backup of your active research data. Costs may be incurred, for example, if additional storage is needed beyond the standard solutions offered by the University. You might also need to factor in the costs of backing up your data on additional storage media.

You should also be aware of any potential costs of digitising your research data. This might include equipment or software for scanning/conversion, optical character recognition or manual data entry. 

Non-digital data

Not all data that you create or collect will be digital. Non-digital data can be anything from handwritten lab notebooks to artefacts, medical specimens, and geological samples. Guidance on digitising data is available from the UK Data Service.

Where it is not possible to digitise your data, you should take steps to store the physical data in a secure location such as a locked, fireproof safe.