IRT

IRT’s Tech Tip Tuesday: MyStorage

From Information Resources and Technologies

This spring’s tech tip series will focus on IRT-supported Web-based resources available to UST faculty, staff and students.  This week’s tip on MyStorage includes MyStorage (what it is), Web space within MyStorage – MyWeb, Quota notifications and Accessing MyStorage from off campus.

MyStorage
At the University of St. Thomas, a central storage directory is created automatically when your UST account is established. This resource, called MyStorage, is located on the UST network.  MyStorage is backed up nightly (unlike your desktop), and accessible from anywhere on or off campus (unlike your desktop), making it possible for you to easily download and upload files to MyStorage from many locations both on and off campus.

Each faculty, staff or student at St. Thomas is allocated 200 MB of storage within their MyStorage directory. Access to My Storage is password controlled, so it is private. You can save documents to this directory using any application’s “save” function, or drag-and-drop icons.

Web space within MyStorage

In addition to traditional storage space, there is a Web-enabled folder within MyStorage called MyWeb. If you put an HTML document named index.html or index.htm into this folder, it automatically will become the home page for your personal UST Web site. Note: The MyWeb folder is a permanent folder in our storage structure. You cannot delete it. If you choose not to use the MyWeb folder, that’s fine. The empty folder will not use any of the 200 MB space allocated to your account.

How you choose to allocate space within MyStorage is completely up to you. It is possible to use the 200 MB for documents, to host a 200 MB Web site, or any combination depending on your personal needs!

Quota notification for MyStorage

MyStorage is getting a lot of use – and that’s good! However, the increased use of MyStorage directories on the UST network required IRT to implement an automatic notification tool to communicate quota status and remind you when you’re getting close to your allotment.

Users who are at 90 percent of their total storage space will receive an alert, users at 105 percent of their total storage space will receive a warning, and users who are at (or above) 110 percent of their total storage space will have their accounts locked.

 

90 percent (alert)

105 percent (warning)

110 percent (lock)

My Storage 200 MB

180

210

220

If your account is locked, please help us by doing a little housekeeping. When the folder size has been reduced to below the 90 percent limit, another message will be sent acknowledging that the folder is once again within quota limits and unlocked. Mac users on campus and all off-campus users will receive an e-mail message notification. PC users on campus will get a pop-up alert as well.

Accessing MyStorage off campus

PC users
To access your MyStorage directory from off campus, you will need to use WebDAV. WebDAV stands for “Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning.” WebDAV allows you to use drag-and-drop functionality to edit and manage files on the university servers from virtually any location via the Web. Additional information on using WebDAV is available online.

Using WebDAV to access MyStorage (off campus)

  • Open Internet Explorer
  • From the File menu, choose Open.
  • Enter https://mystorage.stthomas.edu/username in the field. (Make sure you put an s after http.)
  • Click in the “Open as Web Folder” box (clicking in this box allows you to upload and download files).
  • Click OK.
  • Enter your UST username and password and domain “UST” whenever prompted. If you are not prompted for a domain, enter “UST/username” in the username field.

That’s it! Now you can manage your files by dragging and dropping, or deleting – just like on campus.

Mac users
Installing Goliath: Before you can access MyStorage off campus, you must first install an application called Goliath (this is a one-time installation and it helps ensure security and network integrity).

  • Go to the DAV & Goliath Web page and follow the steps for downloading and installing Goliath.

Accessing MyStorage:

  • Find the Goliath folder on your Mac hard drive.
  • Double-click on the icon.
  • In the URL: field, enter:  https://mystorage.stthomas.edu/username (for MyStorage) (don’t forget the s after http, or you won’t connect).
  • Enter your UST username and password (if your password has expired or you’ve forgotten it, visit the password page).
  • Click OK.

That’s it! Now you can manage your files by dragging and dropping or deleting – just like on campus.

If you have any questions about MyStorage or any of the technology on campus, please contact the IRT Tech Desk, (651) 962-6230. Don’t forget to watch for next week’s tech tip on Dept Store, a UST department version of MyStorage.