Introduction 

The Smith School provides networked private and shared file storage space for faculty, staff, and graduate students.  You can use this space for any school related files.  Benefits of saving your files on the network include nightly back up and access over the Internet from any computer.  The file server runs Novell Netware, and the network storage is often referred to as your “Netware drives.”  In terms of policy, PhD students are considered to be faculty.  Also, any undergraduate or graduate with student employment in the school will be treated as a staff member if their supervisor requires them to have file server access.

Personal File Space 

Home directories are mapped on office computers to the “K” drive on Windows machines.  The policy for faculty, staff and graduate student file space is found Accounts page.  We do want you to limit your disk usage to files related to work, and to please keep non-work media files (such as MP3s) or program installers out of this space.  Faculty and Staff are initially given 300MB of personal storage.  Full and part-time graduate students are given 100MB.  You can easily petition for more file space by filling out an Additional File Space form.

All files stored on the network are backed up nightly and the most recent tapes are kept in a fireproof safe.  Older backups are rotated to an off campus location for extra safety in case of disaster.  Requests to restore files from backup should be made to helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu.  Please be as specific as possible about the location and date of the file you need restored.

Group and Departmental File Space

Departmental and group shared file areas are usually mapped to the “O” drive on Windows machines.  Space in departmental drives is unlimited up to the physical capacity of the disk, but please be respectful of this shared School resource. 

Departmental files are also backed up nightly.

Students are only given access to department or group space if their employment requires it.  For space to share files with your student peers, please see the information below.

Sharing Files with Others

We discourage using email to distribute files larger than one megabyte in size within the school or to those external to the school.  Mail quotas are usually much smaller than file server quotas, and people do not appreciate having their quotas overfilled with attachments.  In addition, mail clients tend to be clumsy when dealing with large files. Please try these alternatives instead.

Users who want to share files with others in their department should use a shared departmental drive.  If you need assistance setting up a departmental drive or gaining access to your department's drive, please contact helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu.

If you need to give access to files to members of a class you should do so through Blackboard.  Blackboard is configured to securely deliver files to members of your classes.  Visit our Blackboard page for more information.  If the file is a sample document for a class to use in a lab exercise, we can also post the file on the Netware network so it is available in the lab and through the eSmith portal. 

For students:  Files intended for everyone in a class can be attached to a discussion board thread.  Files intended for a study group or other subset of the class can be posted in a group space set up by the instructor.  files for just the instructor can be sent using the digital drop box feature

 If you need to give files to people outside of the school there are several options available, including:

• Post the files to the Smith web server for users to download in their web browser.  Contact your department's web publisher for help in getting the file posted. (Faculty and Staff Only)

• Set up an online work area using Lotus Quickplace.  Quickplace allows workgroups of people both in and outside of the school to easily build a website for collaboration.  Click here {link to Quickplace docs}  for more information on Quickplace.

• Burn the files to a CD or DVD, or save them to a USB thumbdrive, and mail the media.  If you need help with this process, contact the Smith helpdesk at helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu.

• None of these seem appropriate?  Contact helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu and we'll find another option for you.

 Accessing Business School File Servers

 In a School Facility – College Park, Shady Grove, DC, or other campus location

 To access your Netware drives in the school simply log in to any office, classroom, or lab computer with your Smith Netware username and password.  You should then see your Netware drives in the Windows Explorer on the computer.  See the table above for what should be stored on the various drives.  As faculty or staff, you will want to make sure that you are logging in to the “Faculty” context.

For information on accessing files anywhere on the internet, visit our Remote Access page.