Skip to Main Content

Data Management Planning: Storing & Organizing Your Files

Guidance and resources for research data management.

File Formats

Best Practices:

  • Accessible in the future, non-proprietary, commonly used by research community
  • Unencrypted and uncompressed,
  • Not proprietary use: PDF not Word, XML or RDF not RDBMS, CSV not XLS

Resources:

File Organization

Back Up Your Data

"Lots of copies keep stuff safe." Keep at least 3 copies of your data, in separate locations:

  • Original
  • External (e.g. hard drive, disk, tape)
  • Networked storage

Storage Options

UC Merced researchers:

  • Box.com is a service vetted and supported by UC Merced IT that provides secure storage and collaboration tools.
  • SDSC Cloud Storage provides affordable, competitively priced options for UC researchers.

Commercial services include: