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File Storage and Sharing
Butler IT recommends that users back up their data routinely as a good practice. Backing up your data will help keep it safe. Butler University provides every student, faculty, and staff member with their own personal file storage space on the Butler network. However, there are several other options as to where students, faculty, and staff can save their files. Some things to consider when choosing a location to store information are:
- Working individually vs. Doing collaborative work
- Accessibility on campus vs. Accessibility off campus
- Cloud/Network storage vs. Local storage
- Secure documents vs. Unsecure documents
- What support is available?
- How much storage space is available to me?
Data Backups
If you are a student and have a problem with your computer requiring hardware replacement or any other extenuating circumstances, you can back up your data to a different source to keep it safe and secure. IT can also help back up and hold your data for up to two weeks. Data recovery may be necessary when a computer unexpectedly crashes, fails to start properly, has a failing hard drive, or if data is accidentally deleted, corrupt, or damaged. IT can also attempt to help recover data from an intact hard drive. Recovery of data cannot be guaranteed.
IT does not have a recommended timeframe for when you should back up your data, however, if you make any new additions to your files, or have something that you consider to be important, you should back up your data. For more information, please visit our webpage.
BUfiles
BUfiles is the Butler network storage option that is provided for ALL faculty, staff, and students. BUfiles has the ability to be accessed from anywhere. All Butler users begin with 2GB of storage on BUfiles, but additional space can be requested by contacting the Help Desk. IT strongly recommends that faculty and staff store their files on BUfiles! For more information, please visit the links below:
Google Apps
Butler University is partnered with Google for Google Apps for Education. This gives Butler students, faculty, and staff access to their suite of online tools. All Butler Google Apps accounts come with unlimited Drive storage. Personal Google accounts begin with 15GB of free storage. For more information on Google Apps, please visit our webpage.
OneDrive
OneDrive is an online storage option that is open to users that have a Microsoft account. It is free to sign up for a Microsoft account, and additional space may be purchased if needed. It allows you to store and access files from anywhere. It gives the ability to sync files and later access them from a web browser or mobile device. Files can be shared privately or publicly to others as well. You can find out more information about OneDrive on Microsoft’s website.
DropBox
Dropbox is an online storage option and is open to users that have a DropBox account. Dropbox accounts are free to create and begin with 2GB of storage. There are different ways to get additional space if needed. The files that are stored on DropBox can be accessed from anywhere - you can download them to work offline, and then easily upload them back to Dropbox online. Learn more about Dropbox here.
iCloud
iCloud Drive allows you to store your files online can also be accessed anywhere from any of your devices. iCloud is tied to your AppleID which can be created for free at Apple’s website. iCloud also allows for users to work on the same file within multiple applications. The starting storage space on iCloud Drive is 5GB, but there are options to change the amount of storage you have. Purchased music, movies, apps, book, TV shows, and shared albums do not count against the free storage. To learn more about iCloud Drive click here.
Box
Box allows users to store their files online. Box also allows the sharing of large files between users with a simple link. Users begin with 10GB of free storage for personal accounts, but can gain more space by changing the type of account they have for a price. To find out more, check out their webpage.
Local Storage: Computer Hard Drive/USB Flash Drive/External Hard Drive
Users can store their files locally on their computer hard drives, or store them on flash drives and external hard drives for added portability. This will allow users to physically transfer files from one location to another and then upload them to another device. The amount of space on these devices will vary for each one that is purchased. This can be very convenient method for data storage because of fast access to the stored information and data can be easily transferred. However, though this is a good method backing up data, users should approach this with caution as hardware always has the potential to fail. If a hard drive fails the data may be difficult or, in some cases, impossible to recover.