I’m used to just saving things on my desktop or the C: drive. How does file storage work in the VDE?

There are multiple types of data storage in the VDE.

Ephemeral Storage

Ephemeral storage is anything saved directly on the C: drive of your windows machine. This storage is deleted when you log out, but can be used for temporary files.

Personal Network Storage

There is also your Personal Network Storage which consists of your Desktop and Documents Folders. We use Folder Redirection to save these folders on our network storage. These folders are intended to be used for configuration files and other small files only. As such, the quota is: 500MB per user.

Resource Drives

All users have access to our Resource Drives. This is read-only storage for things like our CRAN mirror (the R: Drive, RFiles). As this is read-only storage, users cannot save files here. ICPSR can add content to these drives if necessary, and it benefits all users of the VDE.

Project Workspace

Lastly, but most importantly, there is also your Project Workspace which consists of your H: drive. This is a mapped drive and is named after the Principal Investigator of record for your VDE Project. It also includes a number, as some PIs will have multiple VDE Projects. This is the primary storage location for your Project Team and all files should be saved here.