AFS Backups and Restores

SCS Computing Facilities perform nightly backups of AFS volumes in the cs.cmu.edu AFS cell (volumes within /afs/cs.cmu.edu).

Checking the latest backup of your volumes

You can access the most recent backup of your AFS volume. Many AFS volumes contain a symbolic link (symlink) called OldFiles that points to the backup volume for that AFS volume. If the symlink does not exist, you can access the backup volume directly by looking in the corresponding directory under /afs/cs.cmu.edu/.BACKUP.

For example, the backup volume for the user volume /afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/example would be located at:

/afs/cs.cmu.edu/.BACKUP/user/example

Similarly, the backup volume for the project volume /afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/superlab would be located at:

/afs/cs.cmu.edu/.BACKUP/project/superlab 

Please note that this volume will contain the contents of your volume as it looked when the most recent backup was run.

Data Restores

If the data you are looking for is not in the backup directory, please submit an AFS Data Restore Request. We recommend sending restore requests as soon as possible after the data has been deleted. Sending restore requests promptly improves the chances that we can recover the data.