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Best Storage Solution for Undergrad Students

DavidLambert1

ArcGIS Pro 3.0

What is the best storage site for GIS data for undergraduates in a computer lab-based class? Students cannot store on the lab computers as the data and projects are wiped nightly. MS One-Drive may work or students Google drive. Not sure if MyESRI site is a good solution for students, seems clunky. I will ask them to backup on thumb drives but inevitably, some students will lose the device. Looking for the most accessible solution.

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mrmark

David,

Any cloud option (Dropbox, Box, Onedrive, Google Drive) + Geodatabases = corruption sooner or later. You can read Esri's official stance and why it doesn't work in this technical support document.

Because our university pushed everyone to Box.com a few years ago, our Geography department has purchased a large file server and provides a network share that students can access. Geography majors and students taking GIS courses get a folder that is automatically mapped to a drive letter when they sign in. The library provides some network space for others, but it is not permanent. Civil Engineering also provides some network storage to their students but it is very limited.

We experimented with a product that allowed mapping cloud storage to drive letters and would force local caching of any files used prior to opening / use. While we didn't have problems with data corruption, it was PAINFULLY slow. In testing it was MUCH faster to just have people copy their project folder / data from the cloud service to the local machine. Work on it in ArcGIS, then copy it back. It works fine for smaller projects and datasets, but isn't feasible when they have terrabytes of imagery etc.

For those without access to a file server on the network, external hard drives are the most common solution

All comments

RobertKeane1

We use a combination.

Supplying data for students is predominately done via ArcGIS Online (AOL) the data can be share via a course group. We also use AOL as a repository for research data and imagery.

Student have a 4 GB network drive space where they can save their project files and a small amount of data.

For our upper level topics and research projects and sensitive datasets we have an enterprise geodatabase running on SQL Server.

Using AOL allows us to also provide students with Named User licenses via the cloud, therefor minimizing licensing issues like give out standalone licenses. We manage our AOL via python scripting. We check each user is still enrolled or employed at the uni and if not their login is disabled and data backed up to a staging log in. Data is stored for three years for students and seven year for academic staff.

Hope this is useful.

Rob Keane

curtvprice

> Google Drive works great for everything except rasters!

If your file based datasets (gdb, shapefile) have not been corrupted on a synced folder, my experience is it is only a matter of time. This isn't about spaces in pathnames, though of course that's an issue no matter where the data are stored. So just want to reiterate that the only way to safely use ArcGIS Desktop in synching cloud folders is if you turn it off while working in desktop applications -- and you have to remember. My experience is like most things it will work until the day before the student's project is due. 😉

This tech article was mentioned above should be shared far and wide to students! When I was teaching, I linked it all over the place in install instructions, syllabi, and LMS so students could not miss it as the convenience of cloud drives is so tempting. So here is that link again as it is important!

Problem: ArcGIS Pro and Cloud Storage Services

SaraJL

We use Network Drives on Windows! We have a lot of small research groups and one GIS course - it's fairly easy to setup, and we can create permissions for the faculty to manage it (so it just doesn't have to be IT).

The only thing I would recommend with the network drive route is come up with a couple policies for the data retention - otherwise if there are a lot of groups using it, the data can pile up pretty quickly and the storage can get crazy.
We let courses keep access to the Network Drives for the duration of the semester, and then everyone has to backup their data to a source of their choice. Long-term research groups can keep access as long as it is needed.

In the past, I've also had a lot of success with Dropbox. Dropbox is excellent for vector/raster data, and also if you have to use ArcGIS servers for anything.

Google Drive works great for everything except rasters! For a lot of general data work and anything that is vector data, I'll have students store data in a shared drive or My Drive. Anything that requires rasters or raster tools has to be on a Network Drive (or anything that doesn't create a space in the folder pathname)

BrianJBaldwin

@DavidLambert1 - What university are you at? If you want to jump on a call and talk through it/discuss it - just let me know. Feel free to send me an e-mail: bbaldwin@esri.com

DavidLambert1

I'm still new to ArcGIS online, coming from ArcGIS Desktop world, so I have to do some additional research on using Online.

DavidLambert1

I will share this with our IT folks. For the most part, we just need to store layer and data files. This seems like the most manageable solution.

DavidLambert1

Thanks that is something I will look into

BrianJBaldwin

@DavidLambert1 - The other option - and one that @AyanPalit mentions - is having students simply host their data in ArcGIS Online.

It really depends on the workflow - but if students are using layers/data for visualization - a faculty member can pre-publish those and provide them in a group for students to access. Students could then save a copy of the map and modify the symbology, layers, pop-ups, etc.

If they need to conduct analysis or modify the actual data (calculate values, etc.) - they could host their own data and then access those layers with either ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Online.

Let us know how things go as well!

Ayan Palit

@DavidLambert1 MyEsri is certainly not intended for project data. ArcGIS Online does have options to host data layers. I second options suggested by @mrmark

mrmark

David,

Any cloud option (Dropbox, Box, Onedrive, Google Drive) + Geodatabases = corruption sooner or later. You can read Esri's official stance and why it doesn't work in this technical support document.

For those without access to a file server on the network, external hard drives are the most common solution

danretired

Package Project (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

work local, then package the project and backup onto a thumb drive and/or a virtual one.

Do not suggest that they use the googly-thing as part of their project since things won't always go well..

We did that for years before project packaging with simply zip and copy solutions

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