Network drives and file storage - student information
Logging on to a university machine will give you access to a variety of network drives as seen below:
The common drives for all students are:
Local Disk (C:) - this is the hard disk of the computer you are using; most users at this institution cannot access this drive for security reasons;
Local Disk (Q:) - this is a dedicated (non accessible) drive used to deliver applications via (AppV)
CD Drive (D:) - if present, this is the CD-DVD drive of the machine you are using;
Removable Disk (E:) - If the machine has a USB port, then when you connect a USB memory storage device such as a memory pen to the machine, another drive will appear in Explorer, labelled Removable Disk with a new drive letter assigned. When there is no USB device attached, this drive will not be visible.
Your Network Area (N:) <your username> on <your server> - this is the network drive (also called the n drive) you use to store all your own files. (150MB Quota)
Public on Salt (P:) - this is a public drive - by default you can only read the files in this area, but may need to access them for coursework or information.
Network Storage (N Drive) Quota:
Students have n-drive storage limit of 150Mb; if you exceed this quota you will not be able to save any more work to your N Drive until you have cleaned it up and removed enough old files to get it down to about 80Mb to unlock it.
For online tutorials on using Windows Explorer for file management, see the Online Tutorial
Student Webmail Quota:
Students have a Webmail storage limit of 100Mb. This limit is to ensure that a reliable and manageable email service is maintained for all users.
If you go over quota, a warning will be displayed when you log in to WebMail and you will not be able to send or receive any emails until you have deleted some messages to free up space in your account. Undelivered messages will be held for 14 days, after this they will be returned to the sender with a message that you are over quota..
For information on using and managing your
student webmail, see
Student Webmail Tutorial
For information on blocked email attachment file types, see
List of blocked email attachments
Safe file storage:
- 1: Archiving
All your working files should be stored in your n-drive for safety, it is more robust than temporary storage devices such as a floppy disk. CDs, DVD's and USB Pen Drives are also recommended for increased safety of storage and for archiving.
- 2: Working
off-campus
If you wish to take files off the network, for working at home, on a stand-alone machine or laptop, save a copy onto a disk or memory pen, and keep the original on your n-drive for safety.
When you return and wish to update your network copy with the new version on the disk, you can chose to overwrite the old version with the new, but for safety it is often best to give the new file a name that indicates the version, instead of overwriting the old copy - for example, if you are working on 'document1.doc' and take a copy of it home on a disk, when you return, open the copy file from the disk, click on 'save as' instead of 'save', and save it to your n-drive with the name 'document 1a.doc' or 'document1-1.doc'. You will then have both the old and the new version to choose from; when you are happy with the new version on your network drive you can safely delete the old version.
