Drives
What are the Drives?
Virtual encrypted hard drives are container files that function similarly to physical hard drives. Like a physical hard drive, a virtual hard drive file contains a file system that can include an operating system, applications, and data. Virtual hard drive files are typically attached to virtual machines and function as system or data drives for the VM.
Where is the Research Data Saved in a Virtual Machine?
Research data is saved on the drives attached to the user's virtual machine, not on the virtual machines themselves.
Always ensure that at least one drive is attached to a working virtual machine to save your work.
What is the Minimum Recommended Drive Size?
It is recommended to create drives larger than 3 GB.
What Drive Format Should I Select Based on My Operating System?
| Drive Format | Operating System |
|---|---|
| EXT4 | Linux |
| BTRFS | Linux |
| NTFS | Windows |
What is the Purpose of the External Drive Manifest?
The external drive manifest allows you to move large amounts of data from an old machine into the tiCrypt-secured environment.
Performing this action will create a virtual external drive, populate it, seal it, and transport it fully encrypted into tiCrypt.
The following events take place:
- A local virtual hard drive is created in the tiCrypt interface.
- Hard drive metadata is stored securely.
- Private and public keys are generated appropriately.
- Configurations include the given external drive manifest name.
- All configurations are downloaded in .json format.
What is the Appropriate Drive State for Edit Drive?
Users have limited ability to edit a drive in the read-only state.
To perform edits to a drive, you need to set the drive to read-write state.
Once a drive is created, the capacity, team, and project cannot be altered.
The only things that can be changed are the additional ready drives that can be mounted.
How Do I Force Admin Priviledge to Project Tag a Drive?
When you tick the box Use my permission to override rules, re-tag resources with any visible project, regardless of current project relations in the prompt, you are using your admin privileges to classify or declassify a drive. This is permanently recorded in the audit logs and may be performed by super-admin roles only.
Follow the instructions in Forcefully Change Project Tag in Your Drives from Profile.
How to Manage Drive States when Sharing a Drive?
Drives attached to the VM can be shared as read-only with every VM member or as read-write one time, with the VM co-owner or managers.
The read-only drive is accessible to all users who need access.
The read-write drive restricts access only to the co-owners of the drive as a shared control privilege.
What is the Private-Public Key Mechanism when Sharing a Drive?
The read-only state will share read-only drive keys with the respective users.
While the read-write state will share read-write drive keys with the respective users.
If you are a drive owner, you can unshare a drive from all other users.
What is the Shares Column in Drive Table?
The share column indicates who many times the drive resource key has been shared with other users. If the drive displays "No key" the drive has never been shared by with other users except its owner.
How to Manage Drive States When Mounting a Drive?
Unattached drives can be attached either as read-only or read-write.
When a drive is attached as read-write, only the user who attached it can use it, unless the user explicitly shares the drive as read-write with another user. The shared user cannot use the drive unless the original user detaches it or shares it with them.
When the original user detaches the drive, the state of the drive will change to ready. The shared user can now attach it as read-only or read-write.
A drive attached as read-only can be shared with any number of users as read-only without the need for the original user to detach it. However, the original user should never share the drive as read-write with regular users.
Ready drive states are temporary after a new drive has been created or detached. Whenever a drive is attached, it becomes either read-only or read-write.
What is the Prefer Contact Email Checkbox in Drives?
By checking the box Prefer contact email, you will see the contact email addresses of drive users instead of the email accounts they used to register in tiCrypt.
What is Best Practice for Drive States When Transferring Drive Ownership?
To transfer ownership of a drive, you must first share the drive with the new owner as read-write.
To perform this action, you must be a drive owner.
You cannot delete drives that are currently attached to a VM; you must detach the drive from the VM first.
What is the purpose of Drive Copy ID action?
Copying a Drive ID may be useful for system admins who need to identify a specific drive or perform debugging operations.
Follow the instructions in Copy Drive ID.
What User Roles Can Detach Drives?
Detaching drives is only available to drive owners or admins who have the appropriate read-write permissions.
What is Best Practice when Dettaching a Drive from Virtual Machine?
Drive owners will see a warning message when trying to detach a drive. This action should be performed after the VM has been disconnected.
Do not detach drives from a running virtual machine. This action can result in the virtual machine crashing.
How to Detach a Drive?
You can detach a drive by right-clicking the drive and selecting Detach drive(s).
What are the Common Elements between Drive Management and Drive Section?
| . Management > Drives Table | . Virtual Machines > Drives Overview Table |
|---|---|
| The drive owner name in the Owner column. | The drive owner name under the Owner column. |
| The drive state in the State column. | The drive state under the State column. |
| The drive team name in the Team column. | The drive team name under the Team column. |
| The drive project name in the Project column. | The drive project name under the Project column. |
| The drive format in the Format column. | The drive format under the Format column. |
| The drive type in the Type column. | The drive type under the Type column. |
| The number of shares in the Shares column. | The number of shares under the Shares column. |
| The drive size in the Size column. | The drive size in the Size column. |
| The drive ID in the ID column. | The drive ID under the ID column. |