Data Volume

SDSS Science Archive Server (SAS)

The SAS is a hierarchical directory structure with named data products, and can be navigated directly:

Individual data products are either replacements from previous data releases, and add incrementally to the data volume, or contain links to previous data releases, and add cumulatively to the data volume. Whether you are interested in the incremental volume or the cumulative volume depends on whether you want to maintain the archive’s directory structure including the links, or if you prefer to expand the data volume by traversing the links. Although it is recommended to do so, copying the incremental volume may risk broken links unless you also copy the data from the previous releases, whereas traversing links to copy the full cumulative volume may risk obtaining duplicate files.

SDSS Access is the recommended python package to transfer each species of file within a data product, and copies the increments for each specified release keeping links intact without duplication.

In addition, SciServer Compute provides Jupyter notebooks in Python or R. You can create a SciServer account and create containers for your notebooks, as described here.

Incremental Data Volume for Data Release 20

Incremental volume for DR20:

  • 258,854 directories
  • 131,594,049 files
  • 102.75 TB

Previous releases have a combined incremental volume:

  • 5,554,702 directories
  • 395,204,551 files
  • 755.90 TB

Spectroscopic Pipeline Output

Data ProductSAS DirectoryDir CountFile CountSize
ALLSPECspectro/allspec243.58 GB
BOSS_SPECTRO_REDUXspectro/boss/redux200,95588,040,46458.48 TB
LVM_SPECTRO_ANALYSISspectro/lvm/analysis517347144.6 GB
LVM_SPECTRO_REDUXspectro/lvm/redux34717186.5 GB
MWM_ASTRAspectro/astra49,9254,064,764834.8 GB

Raw Observatory Data

Data ProductSAS DirectoryDir CountFile CountSize
BOSS_SPECTRO_DATA_Ndata/boss/spectro/apo48344,794653.8 GB
BOSS_SPECTRO_DATA_Sdata/boss/spectro/lco85393,3761.46 TB
FCAM_DATA_Ndata/fcam/apo488113,3421.49 TB
FCAM_DATA_Sdata/fcam/lco799141,0121.94 TB
GCAM_DATA_Ndata/gcam/apo158712,682,70112.50 TB
GCAM_DATA_Sdata/gcam/lco281626,374,13224.00 TB

Target Data

Data ProductSAS DirectoryDir CountFile CountSize
MOS_TARGET_DIRmos/target62,760108.5 GB

VAC Data

Data ProductSAS DirectoryDir CountFile CountSize
BHM_BLAZARvac/bhm/blazar22170.0 kB
BHM_QSO_HOSTvac/bhm/qso-host221.100 MB
BHM_QSOPROPvac/bhm/qso-properties22952.6 MB
BHM_VIvac/bhm/visual-inspect2229.39 MB
BOSS_OCCAMvac/mwm/boss-occam13653.9 kB
DL1_SDSS_EROSITAvac/mos/DL1_SDSS_eROSITA32310.9 MB
MWM_ISMvac/mwm/ism2287.90 MB
MWM_MDWARFvac/mwm/m-dwarf2229.59 GB
MWM_MINESWEEPERvac/mwm/minesweeper2176.23 MB
MWM_ORBITSvac/mwm/orbits11524.4 MB
MWM_RGBvac/mwm/rgb2318.69 GB
MWM_STELLAR_AGEvac/mwm/stellar-age22656.71 KB
MWM_STELLAR_PARAMSvac/mwm/stellar-params2427.53 GB
MWM_WHITEDWARFvac/mwm/white-dwarf221.869 MB
MWM_YSOvac/mwm/yso228.89 MB
SPIDERS_AGNvac/spiders/agn22167.2 MB

Data volumes for earlier data releases, such as:

  • the final data release for SDSS-IV (DR17) can be found here,
  • the initial data release for SDSS-V (DR18) can be found here,
  • the previous data release for SDSS-V (DR19) can be found here.

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