Research Data Storage Options at University of Michigan

Summary

Researchers throughout all U-M campuses and the Medical School have several options for storing data. This article discusses some of the options available.

 

Data Storage Options

Data storage options will vary depending on the sensitivity of the data (e.g., PHI vs. public data), the investigator's school (e.g. MM vs. LSA vs. ISR), and the stage of the study (e.g. day-to-day management vs analysis vs long-term storage).

Table of storage options by stage of the study.

 

Considerations

  • The Mobile Technologies Core offers free study database storage for studies that utilize wearables or other connected devices. To learn more, request a free consultation.
  • Most of the storage options provided by HITS, except for cloud storage, are free (SharePoint, OneDrive, Oracle, SQL Server) but require an investigator or co-PI to be part of Michigan Medicine or the Medical School.
  • Some options provided by ITS and ARC may have a cost depending on the investigator's department (Locker, Turbo, Data Den, MySQL), while others are free (Dropbox).
  • Deep Blue and RDW do not charge any fees for long term storage, but are restricted based on sensitivity, data quality, and documentation available for the data.

For more information, please refer to the ITS Data Storage Finder tool: https://its.umich.edu/computing/backup-storage/finder

About the Author

Gabriel Mongefranco is a Mobile Data Architect at the University of Michigan's Eisenberg Family Depression Center. Gabriel has over a decade of experience with automation, data analytics, database architecture, dashboard design, software development, and technical writing. He supports U-M researchers with data cleaning, data pipelines, automation and enterprise architecture for wearables and other mobile technologies.

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