Downloading Data from IDAS to Your Computer

Owned by Giang Rudderham
Jan 25, 2024
4 min read

On this page:

 

There are a couple of options to download data from your IDAS account to your computer:

Option 1: Compress the files you want to download, and then download the compressed file using the web interface of IDAS.

Option 2: For IDAS research users:

  • If you have an Argon account or Large Scale Storage (LSS) shares, you can connect to them when you start an IDAS research session.

  • You will be able to move files from your IDAS home directory to your Argon home directory or LSS shares.

  • Argon home directories and LSS shares can be mounted on your computer. You can then copy files from your Argon home and LSS shares to other folders in your computer.

 

Each option is detailed below.

Downloading Data Using the IDAS Interface

 

1. Log in to the IDAS at https://notebooks.hpc.uiowa.edu/. Select either “Interactive Research” or your class instance.

2. Start a Terminal session - Pick one of the options below:

a) Option 1: If you are using JupyterLab, click the Terminal tile under Other in your JupyterLab page:

image-20240125-231810.png

 

b) Option 2: If you are using Jupyter Notebook, click New in the upper right section of the Jupyter Hub page, then choose Terminal:

image-20240125-231904.png

 

c) Option 3: If you are using RStudio, click on the Terminal tab, which is next to the "Console" tab in RStudio:

 

3. In Terminal, use zip to compress the file(s) and/or directories that you want to download. This can take a few minutes, especially if you are compressing a lot of files. Here are some examples for using zip:

# compress all files in the "mydir" directory zip -r backup.zip mydir # compress a specific file in the current directory zip backup.zip myfile.csv

  • In the zip command, use the -r option to include all files in mydir for the compression.

  • For more information about the zip command, please type in Terminal: zip --help

 

4. After the commands finish running in Terminal, a file called backup.zip will be available in your current directory.

The location of backup.zip in your IDAS account will depend on how you use the zip command in step 3 above. The below screenshots are only example screenshots.

  • If you are using JupyterLab, you can find backup.zip in the left-side panel of JupyterLab.

  • If you are using Jupyter Notebook, you can find the backup.zip file in your Jupyter Hub page, like in this example screenshot:

 

  • If you are using RStudio, you can find the backup.zip file in the Files tab in RStudio, like in this example screenshot:

 

  1. Download the backup.zip file to your computer:

  • In JupyterLab, right-click on the backup.zip file and click Download:

 

  • In Jupyter Notebook, check the box in front of the backup.zip file and click Download:

 

  • In RStudio, check the box in front of the backup.zip file and click More, then Export:

 

6. After backup.zip has been downloaded to your computer, you can use a free software such as 7-zip to extract the files in backup.zip to a location on your computer.

 

Connecting to Argon Home Directory or LSS Shares

This is an option for IDAS research users who have Argon accounts or LSS shares.

1. Log in to the IDAS at https://notebooks.hpc.uiowa.edu/

2. In the Server Options form:

  • If you have an Argon account, select Yes in Mount Argon Home.

  • If you have LSS share(s), put the name of the LSS share(s) in the LSS Shared field.

  • Then click Start at the end of the Server Options form.

For more information about how to mount Argon home and LSS shares in IDAS, please see Accessing IDAS for Research Use.

3. Once your IDAS session is ready, you can:

  • move files between your IDAS home directory and your Argon home directory, and/or

  • move files between your IDAS home directory and your LSS share(s).

4. You can mount your Argon home directory or your LSS share(s) on your computer.

5. After your Argon home directory or LSS shares have been mounted on your computer, you can move files from your Argon home directory or LSS shares to other folders on your computer as needed.

 

Contact

If you have any questions or comments, please contact research-computing@uiowa.edu.