• Question: What happens if JASMIN breaks down?

    Asked by anon-258367 to Evelyn on 9 Jul 2020.
    • Photo: Evelyn Greeves

      Evelyn Greeves answered on 9 Jul 2020:

      Great question! The data from JASMIN is stored on tapes, very similar to cassette tapes or video tapes (ask your parents if you haven’t seen one before!). It’s quite an old fashioned way to store data, but it’s great because it’s cheap and doesn’t need constant power. That means that if JASMIN were to go offline, all the data would be safe. We actually keep copies of some of our JASMIN tapes in a special fire-proof safe, just in case something happens and the originals are lost!

      However, if JASMIN broke down, then all the scientists who use it to analyse data would have to wait until it was fixed to carry on. Usually this takes a few days. This happens more often than you’d think, and sometimes it is planned. For example, later this month the tape library, where all the data is stored, will go offline for a couple of days while some of our engineers add space for even more data to be stored.

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