Skip to content

NIH Controlled-Access Data and Repositories

Effective January 25, 2025, adherence to the updated security standards in the NIH Security Best Practices for Users of Controlled-Access Data is included in new or renewed Data Use Certifications or similar agreements. Such data must be stored and computed in a NIST 800-171 compliant environment.

This data can be now hosted and analyzed on YCRC's new NIST 800-171 compliant Hopper cluster. See the Hopper documentation for information on requesting access.

Info

A list of NIH Controlled-Access Data and Repositories can be found on the NIH Website.

Special Conditions to Ensure Compliance on the McCleary Interim Solution

Note, this interim solution is being phased out and all new NIH Controlled-Access Data projects will use Hopper.

Data Storage

To ensure compliance, McCleary now has a special storage space, located at /vast/palmer/nih, for storing Controlled-Access Data. No NIH Controlled-Access Data and associated derivatives can be stored in any other location on McCleary nor on any other YCRC cluster. Approved projects will be granted a directory and quota under /vast/palmer/nih. In order to facilitate the affected work and due to the short term solution on McCleary, storage quota within reason will be granted free of charge.

Data Transfer

As McCleary is the only approved computing environment at this time for NIH Controlled-Access Data, you may not transferred the data off the cluster to any other system including personal computers (with the exception of Hopper when it is available).

Transition to Hopper

All NIH Controlled-Access projects will need to be transferred off of McCleary as soon as Hopper is in production (expected summer 2025). The YCRC will facilitate the transfer of all data to Hopper and then projects and all associated data will be purged from McCleary. Hopper, as a NIST 800-171/HIPAA compliant environment, is more restricted that McCleary, so researchers should be prepared for differences in the user experience. On such restriction is completion of a virtual training program (a few hours in duration) that will required for access to Hopper.

Request Project

To request a special project for storing and computing against NIH Controlled-Access Data and Repositories, please submit the following form.

Request Project Access on McCleary


Last update: July 16, 2025