About RStor Research Storage System

RStor is a mid-performance low-cost storage system launched in 2025 for storing research data that doesn’t have unusual security requirements. RStor is mounted on the Unity batch cluster via NFS and is mountable on UMass Amherst desktop computers via SMB. Shares are managed via the new Unity HPC Platform Allocation Portal.

Data Use

RStor is currently for data levels 1 and 2 only, according to UMass Amherst’s Data Categorization Levels.

Data subject to restrictions under the Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR Parts 730-774) or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (22 CFR Parts 120-130), as well as data subject to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) safeguarding requirements, may not be stored on RStor. We may offer a service that can accommodate these things in the future, but it will be more expensive.

Purchasing & Related Policies

• Minimum purchase period is 1 year
• Backed-up storage is $42/TB/year
• Backups (if applicable) are retained for 90 days and performed daily from snapshots that are taken every 4 hours. 18 snapshots are retained and can be accessed at /.zfs/snapshot but user self-restore functionality from this location hasn’t been extensively tested yet
• Snapshots are available for backed-up and non-backed-up shares
• Non backed-up storage is $18/TB/year
• We will do our best to accommodate share size increase requests but cannot guarantee our ability to do so in all cases. Please try to keep share size change requests to a maximum of twice per year.
• We will pro-rate and co-term space increase requests with the original request
• You have 30 days to get your data off RStor after the end of a purchase agreement before it will be permanently deleted.
• UMass Amherst Research Computing & Data (RCD) will commit to keeping RStor as a service for at least 3 years from share purchase time, or will offer an analogous service to migrate to. Pricing will stay the same for the duration of the initial agreement, regardless of platform.

Beta-Testing Users

• By the end of January 2026, beta-testing users will need to submit payment or remove their data from RStor.
• To continue access, email drparker@umass.edu and werikson@umass.edu with:
  • Share name
  • Accounts that should have access
  • Storage size

How to Request a Share

Shares are managed via the new Unity HPC Platform Allocation Portal. You will need to provide the following:

1. Name of share
   • No spaces, all alphanumeric characters, limit 32 characters
2. Size of share
   • Increments of 1TB
   • Anything over 200TB might require extra time
   • Maximum ~700TB
3. Length of time you expect to have the share (in years)
4. Backed-up storage or non-backed up storage
5. Speedtype to be charged
6. Contact information for who can set up payment