Managing files on Nexus

How to manage your files on Nexus

Your personal Nexus account files are stored on your Nexus N: drive.

View how much of your disk space is currently used

While logged in on a Windows machine connected to Nexus:

  1. Click on the Start button in the bottom left and type cmd.exe and start a Command Window.
  2. Type C:/Nexus/quota, and then press Enter.
  3. Click on the Storage Quotas icon at the bottom right of your Nexus windows screen to view Quota Tool info.
    1. You will see how much quota you have left under Current N: disk (% used).
    2. If you want to be warned when you reach a specific usage point, enter an appropriate value in the Warn if % used >: text box. (For example, entering 90 will trigger a notification when you have used more than 90% of your allotted storage space.)

Getting more disk space

To obtain more space, you have three options:

  1. Delete files to clear space
  2. Move files to an external storage device/site.
  3. Contact the Arts Computing Office for alternatives

Delete files

While logged in on a Nexus machine and account:

  • Click on the Start button in the bottom left, and click on your name at the top right of the menu ([Your Last Name], [Your First Name])  
  • The files contained in this window contribute to your storage allotment.
    • Delete any unneeded files from the Downloads or My Documents folders to clear up space for usage.

External storage

You can clear space on your N: drive by transferring files to

  • An external storage device such as a USB flash drive
    • **NOTE*** Any files moved to USB flash drives/external drives, will no longer be backed up. Only data on N drives and department shares are backed up.
  • Online storage such as:

Saving files

When you log into a Nexus station in any of the Faculty of Arts labs, you have write-access to (i.e., you can save files on), the drives listed in the table below.

Backups

It is good practice to save multiple back-ups of files, especially important files. Saving files on both your Nexus N: drive and USB  key generally works well.

Here is a list of the different drives you will find on a Nexus computer (you do not have write access to the C: drive (Local Disk)).

Drive Letter

Label

Description
E: USB Key

Used to save files onto, and to retrieve files from, a personal USB key.
N: youruserid on 'Artsfileu'

Used to save files onto, and to retrieve files from, your personal disk space ("N: drive) on a Nexus network server.

The N: drive is mounted to your personal disk space on a Nexus network server every time you log into the Nexus network, regardless of what station you log into.

Separate backups of your N: drive are saved every hour, night, and week going back 2 weeks for easy retrieval. This means that if you accidentally delete or overwrite files saved on your N: drive, you can retrieve your N: drive files from back ups! 

The N: drive is the ideal location to store the first copy of most of your files.

Retrieve your N: Drive files from backups

There is a Windows backup tool that will allow you to access older versions of files saved on your N: drive.

  1. On a Nexus Windows machine, click the Start button at the bottom left and then choose Computer.
  2. Open your N: drive and browse to the file you want to retrieve a previous version of.
  3. Right click on the file and select  Restore previous versions.
    1. You will see any available previous versions.
    2. Click on the one you would like to restore and click the Restore button.