NCBI GEO

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · 2 records in Storage · JSON

Records 2

★ qualifiesNCBI SRA — with anonymous read via AWS Open Data
Storagefree tieridentity anonymous?card?evidence reportedstale on 2026-11-05
caveatNCBI GEO
Storagefree tieridentity anonymous?card?limit write-gatedevidence reportedstale on 2026-11-05

Storage

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sraAcademicstorage/ncbi-sra-with-anonymous-read-via-aws-open-dataJSON compare report an error

Free allowance: No per-account quota published.
Verdict: ★ qualifiesusable as stated; the read path was probed
Cost: free tier
Identity: anonymous?placeholder, not evidence; card unknown, phone unknown
Binding limit: noneno named constraint binds
Evidence: reported3 sources; a third party said so
Freshness: stale on 2026-11-05checked 2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-05

Free tier	No per-account quota published. Submission is genuinely bulk: FTP, Aspera (`ascp -QT -l 100m -k1 -d`), or Aspermera; operator guidance for 'tens or more terabytes' is to contact SRA support directly. unit mixed; metered on unstated
Price	none stated
Identity	anonymous (inferred, not read) not published
Egress	Free. Read side is mirrored to AWS Open Data (`sra-pub-run-odp.s3.amazonaws.com`) with anonymous, ranged, CORS-open access — no requester-pays, no auth.
Per-object cap	not stated
Retention	per-object-cap: none on deposit; individual runs of hundreds of GB are normal. Retention: permanent, no expiry
Interface	s3, sftp sftp
Tooling	Aspera Connect / ascp, sra-tools (prefetch/fasterq-dump), and the AWS Open Data mirror which behaves like any public S3 bucket.
Composes with	Deposit is per-submission and effectively unbounded; the AWS mirror means the fetch workload does not touch NCBI's own edge at all, so read capacity is Amazon's, not NCBI's. Each public run is an independently addressable anonymous object.
Reliability	Historically flaky FTP uploads ('frequent drop-outs, you only have a few minutes from logging in'); Aspera is the working path. Anonymous S3 mirror can lag NCBI's own copy.
Parsed numbers	has-free-tier 1

Evidence 3

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-21	www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/docs/submitfiles/	FTP + Aspera ascend commands, 'recommend it for all medium to large submissions'
2026-10-21	www.biostars.org/p/9572863/	'Uploads in theory would only be limited by bandwidth'; >10s of TB goes through SRA support
2026-10-21	sra-pub-run-odp.s3.amazonaws.com/sra/SRR000001/SRR000001	probe: GET -r 0-511 -> 206, Content-Range: bytes 0-511/312527083 (298 MB object), real AWS headers

Unknown values 3

per object cap notes: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
per object cap stated: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
retention notes: the field may be stated in a source that was not read

Storage

Free allowance: No published volume cap; raw sequence data is redirected to SRA.
Verdict: caveatusable, with a named limit or an unprobed read path
Cost: free tier
Identity: anonymous?placeholder, not evidence; card unknown, phone unknown
Binding limit: write-gatedapproval step (~5 business days for accession)
Evidence: reported2 sources; a third party said so
Freshness: stale on 2026-11-05checked 2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-05

Free tier	No published volume cap; raw sequence data is redirected to SRA. Notable for retention rather than size. unit mixed; metered on unstated
Price	none stated
Limits	write-gated (binding) approval step (~5 business days for accession) source per-object-cap: not stated (defer to SRA for raw reads). Retention: 'the maximum allowable limit is four years' for private hold, then mandatory public release; records can be edited after release. Binding constraint is the human curation/approval step (~5 business days for accession).
Identity	anonymous (inferred, not read) not published
Egress	Free and anonymous.
Per-object cap	not stated
Retention	not stated
Interface	rest, ftp rest
Tooling	GEO FTP/HTTPS plus the GEOmetadb / GEOquery R packages.
Composes with	Not a volume play. The interesting property is private-retention: records may stay private for up to four years before release, with reviewer tokens for anonymous read-only access.
Reliability	Records cannot stay private once an accession is cited in a manuscript or preprint — GEO staff release unilaterally.
Parsed numbers	has-free-tier 1

Evidence 2

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-21	www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/info/faq.html	'the maximum allowable limit is four years', forced release if accession cited
2026-10-21	www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/info/submission.html	5 business days for accession, private-until-published policy

Unknown values 4

per object cap notes: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
per object cap stated: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
retention notes: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
retention stated: the field may be stated in a source that was not read