To receive bulk data, we require you to supply the external hard drives, within our specifications, and pay for shipping the drive(s) to us and provide a paid return label (UPS, USPS and FEDEX) or a carrier (FEDEX only) account number.

Turn-around time may take up to 4 to 8 weeks; no guarantee or priority service available. The actual delivery time may vary, depending on the workload at the time an order is placed.

Specifications for external hard drives listed below:

• USB 1.1 - USB 3.0 compatible
• PC and XP compatible
• Capacity-large enough for estimated data, usually 30 to 40 gigabytes (GB) for system use. (For example, 300 GB external hard drive holds 277 GB of actual data; 500 GB external hard drive holds 460 gigabytes of actual data; 1TB external holds 930GB; 1.5 TB external holds 1386 GB: 2 TB drives hold 1860GB ).
• Accepted capacity range of 8 GB to 2.0 Terabytes (We do not accept 3 or 4 TB drives)
  
  Note: We use LINUX systems to transfer data and have run into issues recognizing the My Book Premium hard drives. Please do not use this type of drive. The My Book Essential works fine.
• Cache Buffer - 8 megabytes or higher
• Spin Rate-7200 RPM
• Drives are reformatted to NTFS; any data already on the external hard drive will be lost.
• EROS will place content labels on drives.
• Not Accepted External Drives:
  • 3 or 4 TB Drives
  • My Book Premium

Process for acquiring bulk data:

You would send an email request to bulkdatainfo@usgs.gov and it should include the following:

• Your information (address and phone number)
• Product requested.
• Area requested (applies to the High Resolution Orthoimagery)
• Format

An email will be sent with the following information:

• Job ID Number
• Size estimates for requested data
• External drive minimum specifications
• Shipping address

You ship the following:

• Correct number of external drives based on the size estimates.
• All correspondence emails — Highlight the Job ID Number
• Return shipping address and phone number
• Return shipping account number or labels

We will not process the request unless we have the correct number of drives; a Job ID Number listed, and return shipping account or labels.

No warranty expressed or implied is made by the USGS regarding the condition of received or distributed external hard drives. The USGS shall not be liable for any received or distributed damaged external hard drives. These data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the USGS, no warranty expressed or implied is made by the USGS regarding the use of the data on any other system, nor does the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. Data may have been compiled from various outside sources. The information may be updated without notification. The USGS shall not be liable for any activity involving these data, installation, fitness of the data for a particular purpose, its use, or analyses results. Any questions, please contact bulkdatainfo@usgs.gov.

The National Map Data Available for Bulk Distribution includes:

Data Type	Dataset	Minimum Delivery Packages	Format	Projection	Size Estimates
Orthoimagery	High Resolution Orthoimagery (HRO)	Individual datasets as received (i.e. Urban Area, County Area) Each image tile covers an area of 1500m x 1500m	Geotiff	UTM	Depends on the dataset
Orthoimagery	Digital Orthophoto Quadrangles (DOQ's)	Individual States	Geotiff - zipped in .tgz files	UTM	16.9 Terabytes full dataset
Orthoimagery	National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP)	Individual States	JPEG2000 2012 10:1 compression (pre-2012 3:1 compression)	UTM	Depends on the state
Full resolution NAIP may be obtained by contacting the USDA FSA APFO http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/apfoapp?area=home&subject=prog&topic=nai
National Elevation Dataset (NED)	NED 1 Arc Second	Complete Dataset	ArcGrid, Gridfloat or .IMG	Geographic	102 Gbytes 95 Gbytes 81 Gbytes
National Elevation Dataset (NED)	NED 1/3 Arc Second	Complete Dataset	ArcGrid, Gridfloat or .IMG	Geographic	480 Gbytes 469 Gbytes 407 Gbytes
National Elevation Dataset (NED)	NED 1/9 Arc Second - Bulk Data	Complete Dataset and Individual State	ArcGrid or Gridfloat	Geographic	1906 Gbytes 1864 Gbytes State sizes vary
National Elevation Dataset (NED)	NED 2 Arc Second- Alaska	This data included with NED 1 Arc Second data	ArcGrid, Gridfloat or .IMG	Geographic	7.1 Gbytes 6.2 Gbytes 4.8 Gbytes
Other Datasets	National Land Cover Database 2001 (NLCD01) -- Includes (Landcover, Canopy, Impervious)	Complete Dataset	ERDAS .img	Albers	4.76 Gbytes
Other Datasets	National Land Cover Database 2006 (NLCD06) -- Includes (Landcover, Land Cover Change, Percent Developed Imperviousness, Supplementary Layers)	Complete Dataset	ERDAS .img	Albers	5.3 Gbytes
Other Datasets	Digital Raster Graphics (DRG's) All Scales	Complete Dataset	TGZ (Geotiff)	UTM	238 Gbytes
Other Datasets	US/Canada High Resolution Orthoimagery (HRO)	Complete Dataset	Geotiff	UTM	12.724 TB
Other Datasets	US/Mexico High Resolution Orthoimagery (HRO)	Complete Dataset	Geotiff	UTM	4.632 TB