7. Keeper¶
Archiving and more
Home page: https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de
Note
The section below assumes you are an employee of the Max Planck Society.
7.1. Features¶
Keeper provides disk space (in the cloud and provided by the Max Planck Digital Library), that can be archived.
Data is organised into Libraries (i.e. top level folders represent libraries)
An overview of all the libraries is available through a web browser at the keeper home page (https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de)
Keeper allows upload of large files or directories
Keeper allows cloud synchronisation of data with local machine
Access to librariers with other MPG researchers can be managed through Sharing Libraries or Folders
Subdirectories and files and can be made available publicly through a share link
Sharing is possible with MPG researchers and external collaborators
Libraries can be turned into archives
Data will be archived for at least 10 years (see “Cared Data Committment”)
provides a “Cared Data Certificate”
Use as Google-docs alternative for real time collaborative document authoring
7.2. Quota (data size)¶
The amount of storage for each user is 1TB (by default).
Quota is counted by looking at the size of the libraries associated to the owner of the libraries. Each library has exactly one owner.
By sharing libraries with others, this does not contribute to the data quote of the others.
Keeper is not designed to archive significantly larger amounts of data. (As of Jan 2021.)
7.3. Getting started¶
Keeper home page URL: https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de
shows some documentation links while logged out
shows overview of libraries and files in browser when logged in
Additional documentation at https://mpdl.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/360001234340-Keeper
One needs to subscribe to use the service and define a new password that is required to connect the SeaLife or SeaDrive clients to Keeper, or when logging in to the Keeper home page (https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de)
7.4. Libraries¶
KEEPER organises files into ‘libraries’. Each library can be synced and shared separately. One personal library is created on sign-up. You can create more libraries later.
7.5. Getting data into KEEPER (SeaFile)¶
The web interface at https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de allows to see all the data in keeper, including libraries, shared libraries, all the directory structures and files.
More convenient access is realised through keeper clients.
7.5.1. SeaFile¶
SeaFile can be used to upload files (or whole directories) from the local storage system to Keeper, or to download files from keeper to the local machine.
It is also possible to ‘sync’ local folders with those in Keeper: any change in one of the files on the local machine will (in the background) be repeated in Keeper’s storage.
This is convenient to have a synchronised copy of the data at a different location, while working on the data.
Note that you need to Unsync such synchronised data before you delete it locally (other wise the copy in Keeper will also be deleted).
7.5.2. SeaDrive¶
Is a more recent client than SeaFile. It is currently not as stable as SeaFile, and usage of SeaFile is recommended (as of Jan 2021).
Note
Experience reports are welcome regarding practical data upload and synchronisation.
7.5.3. Unsync¶
When you have synchronised a local folder with Keeper, and want to delete the local folder but keep the copy in Keeper, you need to unsync that folder before deleting it.
7.6. Notifications¶
Email notifications about changed files can be requested (for example to be sent every day, or every 4 hours). This can be helpful when working on a shared library.
7.8. Usage experience¶
Moving files (for example into a subdirectory) within a directory on a local machine using the SeaDrive client (tested with OSX), results in deletion and re-upload of the files to the Cloud. This could take a long time for large files.
So the lesson is: best to put files into the right place immediately (if the amount of data is large and upload times are long), or to drive such operations through the web interface.
Please share your observations! (Contact Introduction)