Backup, backup, backup ...

1. What's the point of doing a simulation if you are going to loose all the data (and their analyses) due to a hard disk failure ? None
2. What is the probability of a hard disk failure given enough time ? 1.0
3. What is the probability according to Murphy's law that the 'enough time' above will coincide with the day that your simulation and analyses finish ? 1.0

Points 1, 2 and 3 above imply that

Data loss due to missing backups is unacceptable behaviour (and a hanging offence)

Now you know.

There are two types of backups that you will have to use. The first is backing-up all data and files from your simulation (which are located in /work). You should do this immediately after your simulation is finished and then delete the files. The reason is that the simulation files are located on the server disk, which will get full very quickly if people do not backup and delete their files. If you do not (backup and then) delete your files from /work, someone else will. The second type of backup is to save all files in your home directory. The procedures are :

• Backing-up molecular dynamics simulation data
• Backing-up your home directory