Requesting storage space and support

Request a project space

If you have a requirement to store some research data, you can request a project space:

Note

You may be required to pay for your project space if it is greater than 500GB and may be asked to provide a project/cost code. This will depend on various factors such as the amount of space you are requesting etc.

PGT and UG students will need to ask their supervisors to request on their behalf and the maximum storage size they can request is 200GB.

To request a Storage Volume aka Project Space, you need to go to the “Request Storage” tab and fill in the form.

Make sure that you request the correct type of storage volume for your project. In the “OS Accessibility options” you will need to specify whether the storage volume will be used on “Windows and Mac” or on “Linux, Windows and Mac”.

Being the owner of the storage volume does not automatically grant you access to it. For the storage volume to be accessible, you need to grant WRITE access to youself first then to anyone else who needs to have access to it.

Note

From 08:30 to 18:00 Mon - Sun, when a request is submitted for a storage volume which is not greater than 500GB in size, the storage volume will be created automatically by the system and should be available and accessible for use after 2 hours. The delay is due to the fact that access is managed through Active Directory groups and it takes a while for those groups to be created and populated.

Storage volume size

Free storage is only limitted to 500GB and any storage capcity above this limit costs £500 per 1TB.

Accessing a storage volume

A Windows storage volume is accessed through S:\Research\storage_volume_name, storage_volume_name being the name of the storage volume you requested through the web form.

A Linux storage volume is accessed in Linux as /vol/research/storage_volume_name, storage_volume_name being the name of the storage volume you requested through the web form.

$ cd /vol/research/storage_volume_name

A Linux storage volume is accessed in Windows by mapping a network drive to:

\\surrey.ac.uk\Research\storage_volume_name

Note

Storage volumes are accessed through AD groups memberships therefore, you will have to logout and login again to pickup the new groups memberships.

Storage volumes can be accessed from every University managed desktops and Linux servers except from the Eureka2 and March11 HPC clusters, the AISURREY and COSTAR HTC clusters, and other servers where access to storage volumes was restricted.

Moving data between different storage systems

To move storage volume data to or from the restricted systems, go to the datamove section for more information.

Managed storage systems features

Project spaces reside on our managed storage systems and offer the following features:

✅ Data protection:

  • Data stored in a project space is backed up.

  • Data stored in project spaces are stored on university servers in the UK.

✅ Network accessible:

  • All project spaces are accessible via the network and therefore available on most managed university desktops and servers.

✅ Collaborative access:

  • Project spaces can be made available to groups of Surrey users, giving you control of who has access to the data.

  • Project spaces are only accessible to other users at Surrey, not to externals.

Caution

Project spaces requested via filestorage.surrey.ac.uk should not be used for the storage of sensitive, personal or special category data. Such data may have data storage compliance requirements not met by the network filestorage service and may need to be stored in an “SDE”(secure data environment) or “TRE”(trusted research environment).

If you’re unsure of the compliance requirements for your research data please consult with the Assurance team

Tip

File Storage request help guide

Get storage support

Open a support ticket to report an issue or ask for help with a data storage issue or problem.

More information on support options can be found at Available Support.