Storage System Replacement

Updated 22 February 2010

Quick Links

• File Migration Background
• Quota Increases
• Instructions for MAC users
• Other Frequently Asked Questions

File Migration Activities September 2009 - February 2010

ITS commenced a project early 2009 to replace aging file storage infrastructure with the following objectives:

• Significantly increase storage quotas for staff and students to better meet storage needs (5Gb for Staff and 1Gb for Students and 50Gb for Research Roles and Academics)
• Improve ITS' ability to support the growth in data storage requirements at the University, which is increasing by 50% each year

• Replace older equipment with more modern file storage technology

Where are we at?

The new infrastructure has been installed and migrations were completed on 15th February 2010. Quotas will be increased by March 2010 and then the old file servers will be turned off and decommissioned.

Quota Increases

Why are we doing this? One of the most important reasons is to provide you with additional personal storage quotas. The table below provides you with an overview of the planned quota upgrades.

* For staff with laptops, this data is cached locally on your PC so it can be used offline. Naturally if you store more data in your U: drive than you have available space on your local laptop hard disk, not all data can be locally cached. It is therefore strongly recommended that any strategy to utilise the full 50Gb quota, is matched with a review of your laptop hard disk's ability to cache this amount of data. Any hard disk upgrades necessary on laptops are a faculty or division cost.

 I am a Macintosh user, how will this affect me?

Macintosh computer users have been identified and contacted by an ITS staff member to migrate home folders and remount shared file systems and home folders. The majority of Mac users were able to change the file server mounts guided by the instructions, remote assistance supplied.

There have been changes to the CIFS server names that are important to understand and ITS have mapped the old to the new server names. You can find the new server names and instructions how to mount the correct file system on Macintosh computers here. These were also  included in the notification emails sent to users.

Desktop Shortcuts only needed to be updated if you have used hard coded paths to point to the new location. Typically, you do not have to change any of your desktop icons.

Embedded links in office documents, spreadsheets and databases will also need to be updated, ITS has a tool available that will automate this process for shared file systems and you will not have to do anything.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will happen if I have purchased additional storage?

 If you have purchased additional personal storage in the past, your existing quota will be re-applied in the new storage environment in addition to the default quota allocated.

I'm a laptop or tablet computer user. Will my U:\ (home folder) continue to be available on my computer when I am off the University network?

Staff with laptops reaching the free disk space threshold may discuss replacing or upgrading with their school or division in the first instance.

It is also important to anticipate the possibility of a temporary performance degradation once a large amount of data is uploaded to your home folder after the quota increase, and your laptop computer copies it to make it available offline.  We ask you to keep that in mind when you upload a significant amount of data, and appreciate your patience should this occur on your laptop.

Feedback?

For feedback on Technology Services Storage Management, please contact Rob Testi, Manager Production Services, Technology Services.