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Saving files to Drives at the School of Nursing

You have a number of choices of places to store your files at the School of Nursing. Note: Most of the following options are available to faculty and staff only and do not apply to the computer labs. Students should save files to a USB drive (available from the School of Nursing's Office of Student Affairs) or to their MFile space.

Which drive should I use?

For faculty and staff, use your J:\ drive, not your C:\ drive (the hard drive of your computer) for day-to-day saving of files that you don’t need to share.
- Keep in mind that it is much more likely that your C:\ drive is going to crash without a backup than that the J:\ drive is going to crash.
- If you save to the J:\ drive, you also have access to all your files from any computer in the School.
- The J:\ drive is backed up daily; you can also "undelete" files you have accidentally erased.
If you need to have more than one person working on the file (e.g., updating the same spreadsheet, editing the same paper), save it to the O:\ drive or another SoN shared drive .
Save web pages to your MFile space.
Use CTools if you need to share files with people outside U-M.
If you are a student, your best bet is a USB drive, followed by your MFile space.

Drive	Description	Accessible by…	Accessible from…	Notes
C:\My Documents	The hard drive of the computer in front of you.	You only	Your usual computer. If you log into another computer, you will have a folder called “My Documents,” but it won’t have any documents in it from your normal computer.	Each person who logs into this computer has a folder called “My Documents” that only she can get to.
J:\	Your folder on the School of Nursing server	You only, except for your drop box.	Any computer that you log into within the School of Nursing (except the computer labs)	If you normally work at more than one computer, or if you need to move files between computers, store them in the J drive.
J:\dropbox	A folder within your J drive where others can store materials.	You can read and write everything in this folder; others can “send” you files by saving them to your dropbox.	Any computer that you log into within the School of Nursing (except the computer labs)	A good alternative to e-mail large files to each other.
O:\	Shared file space on School of Nursing server	Everyone in your workgroup (OAA, OBFA, etc.)	Any computer that you log into within the School of Nursing (except the computer labs)	Best place for files that are regularly used and changed by multiple people in your office.
MFile space	Institutional File Space; 1 GB of space on central U-M servers	You can read and write files; you can also put files in a Public folder that others can read, but not modify.	Any computer with an Internet connection – go to http://mfile.umich.edu/ and log in.	A good place to store files if you’re working at home. This is also where personal web pages live.
CTools	Class or project web site	Anyone who is a member of that class or group.	Any computer with an Internet connection – preferably a fast connection.	Good for sharing files with folks outside of the School of Nursing – either at U-M or other places.
USB drive	Small, portable “disk” and drive all in one	Anyone who has the drive.	Any computer less than 3 years old, and many older computers with the proper download.	The same drive will work on PC and Mac. Needs no network connection at all. Very convenient for faculty taking PowerPoint to class. Not secure; can be lost or stolen.