AFS Backups

Help I just deleted my thesis!

Most accidents can be recovered from the .snapshot directory in your home directory. This has a complete copy of your home directory as it was at the previous midnight, simply copy the missing or mangled files back into place and you're off and running. For files in group or project spaces this .snapshot directory may or may not exist depending on how the volume was created. If it isn't there email help@csail.mit.edu and we can mount the snapshot so you can look around

But I deleted it a week ago...

All AFS volumes are backed up to tape nightly. Send your request to help@csail.mit.edu, please include what's missing and the last time it was known good. The sooner we are notified the more granularity we have with the restore process. The granularity of restore ranges from daily to monthly depending on how far back in time we need to go. We keep nightly tapes for one week, weekly tapes for one month and monthly tapes indefinitely. Tapes over one year old may not be readable due to changes in tape technology and the degradation of media over time.