The update ‘New guidance for university file storage’ published in last week’s all-staff newsletter (on 12/07/2022) was summarised in the ‘Staff News’ email as ‘all data stored within the S: (Shared) and R: (Research) drives must be moved to Microsoft 365 by Sunday 31st July 2022’.

This summary is not accurate, and we apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

As was stated in the full version of the update, available here, any data that has a specific performance requirement for onsite storage should remain in its current location.

The S: and R: Drives are not being discontinued, and will continue to be available to host data with these specific requirements.

Data appropriate to remain on the S: and R: drives includes:

• • Research Data needed for ongoing use/analysis during the lifetime of a project.
  • Research Data sourced live from external equipment (e.g. microscopes, spectrometers)
  • Data where there is a regulatory or contractual requirement for onsite storage.
  • Access databases
  • Any files over 250GB in size.
  • Deposits made automatically by Agresso or Campus Solutions
  • Alteryx workflows

If you have any questions, or need support to migrate your data, please fill out our enquiry form to get in touch with the project team.

To reiterate, the S: and R: Drives are a key part of the university’s storage provision, and they are not in danger or being decommissioned.

They will continue to be available to host data with these requirements. By removing data that doesn’t require this high-performance storage type, we can free up capacity on the S: and R: Drives for these types of files.

Support available

There is guidance available on choosing a storage platforms and migrating data available on the Storage Solutions SharePoint.

The Office365 SharePoint site has more information on using Microsoft 365, including how to store, collaborate and share data.

If you would like to speak to the project team, you can fill in our enquiry form. If you have questions about research data, you also might want to speak to your Digital Research Specialist.