Storage pricing

The mass storage is an expensive piece of equipment. Since it is shared by many users and groups, the storage space is subject to quotas and teams are charged for there usage. Here are the rules applied in the billing process.

Free space

Each team has access to a free storage space equivalent 500 GB/member. For instance, a team composed of 5 members has access to 2.5 TB of free storage space. The number of members considered in this calculation is the same as the number of members used for communal expenses billing (“Frais communs”).

Addition space

If the free space allocated to a team is not sufficient, the additional space will be charged 2.5€/TB/month (i.e., 30€/TB/year). To use the previous example, a team of 5 members occupying 3 TB on the mass storage will pay 15€/year for the additional 0.5 TB.

Important

This cost is far below the actual cost of storage.

Cost calculation and billing

Disk space usage of each team is automatically recorded every day. At the end of each billing period (usually 6 months), average usage is calculated and the cost is determined accordingly.

Warning

This calculation is independent of the quota set on a team folder. To continue on the previous example, if the team of 5 members has a quota of 4.5 TB, but, on average, only uses 3 TB, that team will be charged only 15€/year for the additional 0.5 TB the actually use.

Getting money for data storage

If you are applying for grants for projects that will produce large amount of data (i.e. few hundreds of Gb and more), you should definitely ask for money for the storage of these data.

In FNRS research grants for example, you can add an entry for “Data Archiving” (“Archivage de données”) in the section “Support Operating Costs” (“Frais de fonctionnement - frais divers”).

If you need help to estimate the amount of data your project will produce, please contact the platform that will generate them:

  • Genomics: nextgenseq.giga@ulg.ac.be

  • Proteomics: proteomics.giga@uliege.be

  • Cell imaging: alexandre.hego@uliege.be

  • Human in vivo Imaging: mri.crc.giga@uliege.be

  • Human Electrophysiology: electrophy.crc.giga@uliege.be

  • Preclinical in vivo Imaging, Data processing & Radiophysics, Research & Development in radiosynthesis: methods.crc.giga@uliege.be