# Downloading 30-60 minutes of RAW neuropixels data

**URL:** <https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169>\
**Category:** How To\
**Tags:** how-to\
**Created:** [July 9, 2021, 1:38pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169 "2021-07-09T13:38:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![maciej-123](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/community.brain-map.org/maciej-123/32/439_2.png) [@maciej-123](https://community.brain-map.org/u/maciej-123)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:38pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169/1 "2021-07-09T13:38:12Z")

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I am new to the Allen institute and would like to download 30-60 minutes (only a small amount - less than 5GB) of RAW Neuropixels data. Do you know how to easily download a small section of it?

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**Author:** ![joshs](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/community.brain-map.org/joshs/32/8_2.png) [@joshs](https://community.brain-map.org/u/joshs)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169/2 "2021-07-09T16:06:37Z")

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Hi there, and thanks for the question! All of the raw data from our Neuropixels experiments is available as an AWS public dataset. Instructions on how to access it are available here: [Use the Allen Brain Observatory – Visual Coding on AWS · AllenInstitute/AllenSDK Wiki · GitHub](https://github.com/AllenInstitute/AllenSDK/wiki/Use-the-Allen-Brain-Observatory-%E2%80%93-Visual-Coding-on-AWS)

Since each probe has 384 channels sampled at 30 kHz, 30 minutes of data will be around 40 GB. What are you planning to do with the data? I may be able to send you a smaller snippet if you only need 5 GB or so.

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**Author:** ![maciej-123](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/community.brain-map.org/maciej-123/32/439_2.png) [@maciej-123](https://community.brain-map.org/u/maciej-123)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169/3 "2021-07-09T17:22:02Z")

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Thank you for the fast reply - I did not expect the files to be so densely packed - (my calculations give me about 384_30000_30\*60 = 20,736,000,000 -order of 10s of GBs - so seems about right)

I would still appreciate it if you send me a 5GB snippet of data - what method do you want to use?

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**Author:** ![joshs](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/community.brain-map.org/joshs/32/8_2.png) [@joshs](https://community.brain-map.org/u/joshs)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2021, 10:08pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169/4 "2021-07-12T22:08:14Z")

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Here’s 5 GB of raw data for 384 channels from one probe: [continuous.dat - Google Drive](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UqBHvEisoKFN59qe-r_rUGMRGwbnY0-M/view?usp=sharing)

You can load it in Python using:

```python
import numpy as np
fname = '/path/to/file'
data = np.memmap(fname, dtype='int16')
data = np.reshape(data, (data.size//384, 384))

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maciej-123](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/community.brain-map.org/maciej-123/32/439_2.png) [@maciej-123](https://community.brain-map.org/u/maciej-123)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2021, 9:58am UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169/5 "2021-07-14T09:58:29Z")

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Thank you for the data! May I ask about some meta data - which part of the brain is it recorded from and what are the values representative of (i.e how do I convert values to millivolts?)

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**Author:** ![joshs](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/community.brain-map.org/joshs/32/8_2.png) [@joshs](https://community.brain-map.org/u/joshs)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2021, 3:30pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/downloading-30-60-minutes-of-raw-neuropixels-data/1169/6 "2021-07-14T15:30:00Z")

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This probe passes through thalamus, hippocampus, and cortex. To convert to millivolts, just multiply the values by 0.195.