Restore Requests

Restore Requests

How To Request Data Restore

Send mail to help@csail.mit.edu including

NFS Restores

AFS Restores

Note that the “latest” version of AFS data is usually available in the .snapshot directory of your AFS Home Directory and other AFS storage see Backup Policy for more information.

Help I just deleted my thesis!

Every morning, a snapshot (online backup) is taken of every active AFS volume. Look in the =.snapshot= directory at the root of your AFS volume. Normally this is the root of your home directory (e.g. =/afs/csail/u/s/sampleuser/.snapshot=). For some larger group or project directories, look the first =.snapshot= at or above the directory that the desired files are (were) in.

Copy the missing or mangled files back into place and you’re back in business.

But I deleted it a week ago…

All AFS volumes are backed up to tape nightly. Send your restore request to help@csail.mit.edu, please include as exact a path to the file as possible, 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.