Files, storage and access
Files, storage and access
Every member of the university is allocated a Home Folder, a secure place to save University work. This file store allocation is referred to as your G Drive or Home Folder. This is a networked drive, which means your information is backed up regularly and it is available to you from any of the PCs you can log into at the University. It can be accessed from outside University as well, when you have an internet connection. G Drive is available to all students studying at the BNU campuses.
All students are allocated a default Home Folder quota of 750MB with an additional 1TB (terabyte) available in OneDrive online cloud storage. OneDrive is available to all BNU students, including partner college students.
For any queries on G Drive, OneDrive and files and storage access, contact the IT Service Desk.
You are free to store any data on the G: drive but you must always adhere to our IT Policies. The contents of your G: drive are deleted 1 year after you graduate from the University. You must ensure to take a copy of any files you wish to retain before the contents are deleted.
Click here for the Quick Start Guide for using G: Drive.
How to access your G Drive
Windows PC
When you log onto a University PC including pc’s in offices, pc’s in teaching labs and pc’s in open access areas, your Home Folder is automatically connected as the G Drive.
Your G: drive can be found under ‘My Computer’ and will have your student ID number. On windows pc’s the Home Folder is also referred to as Documents as well as the G Drive.
When you wish to save your work click ‘save as’ you will be able to decide on the format of your document, its name and location.
Apple iMacs
When you log onto a university iMac or MacBook you Home Folder automatically appears as an icon on the Dock
Your Home folder can be accessed from the Internet. This can be used to access your files from you own computer/device whether you are on campus or working elsewhere.
- To access your G Drive off campus, simply visit: https://mydocs.bucks.ac.uk
- Enter your BNU username and password.
What is OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive is cloud hosted storage which allows you to store, sync and share your files. OneDrive is part of Office 365 and provides you with 1 terabyte (TB) of storage which is accessible from any of your computers or mobile devices. OneDrive is available to all BNU students, including partner students.
View the Quick Start Guide for accessing OneDrive.
How to access OneDrive
- Sign in to Office 365 from https://office.com
- Enter your BNU username
- You will be re-directed to the university sign in page
- Log in with your BNU username and password
- Select the App Launcher button in the top-left corner
- Select OneDrive.
Find out more about managing files and folders in OneDrive.
Find out more about uploading files to your OneDrive.
Working collaboratively
You can share files and folders in your OneDrive with other BNU users including teaching and support staff or users outside of the university.
An aspect of IT security is data security. Whilst at University, you will be likely to work on lots of digital documents that are important to your academic development. Ensuring that these are safely stored and backed up will prevent you from having to rewrite coursework or notes in the event of the originals being lost.
There are many ways in which important documents can be lost. Your computer may break or get a virus, it could be stolen or the file may be accidentally deleted. Departments do not usually make allowances for technical issues if you submit work late, so it is up to you to make sure that your work is properly saved and backed up.
Here are a few things that you should remember when saving your work:
Save work to the G: drive
The G: drive is your own personal space for saving your documents. The University G: drive is backed up regularly. This means if you accidentally delete or save over a document it can be restored from a previous version.
Don’t keep copies of files on a single device (e.g. a USB stick or a DVD)
If your only copy of your work is on a USB stick or DVD and that breaks or gets lost then your files will be lost with it. Save your work to the G: drive or the OneDrive as well as your device so you have a backup. If internet access is a problem even saving to another device kept separately is better than only having it in one place.
Back up using your own computer and storage devices
To protect your files on your own computer, you can create a backup: a set of copies of the files that is stored in a different location from the original files (such as an external hard drive). Windows users can use tools such as the Back Up Files Wizard to back up their files at regular intervals. Mac users can use Time Machine to back up their files. If you use a Mac please make sure you remember to turn off the sharing settings to prevent other people being able to access your machine.
Email to yourself
It is a good practice to email your important work files to yourself so that a copy would always be available, even if any work in your local machine gets deleted.
Save documents in the Cloud
OneDrive is a storage service offered by Microsoft. It’s a place to store and organise your work documents on the internet and can be accessed from any internet connected device.