This article contains answers to frequently asked questions in regards to Network Attached Storage (NAS).
Introduction
Note: In order to protect the records of the University and comply with NC Department of Cultural Resources requirements for Security Backup Files as Public Records, this service maintains 30 days of security backups. This service is not intended as an archive but provides assurance against loss of records. All retention schedule items present on the services have the same backup plan. This information is provided in compliance with UNC General Records Retention and Disposition Schedule series #7.17
NAS stands for Network Attached Storage. ITS offers a central NAS service designed to provide the Campus with CIFS based file storage for departmental and home directory use. The system uses Active Directory (ad.unc.edu) authentication for access permissions and is designed to meet a base level of security requirements. It is NOT designed to store “sensitive” data.
Information
What is storage.unc.edu?
\\storage.unc.edu is the server that hosts departmental shared storage. Please see the Getting Started help document for additional information.
What is my departmental (or unit) allotment on storage.unc.edu?
As an incentive to use storage.unc.edu, ITS will be funding and providing to campus departmental groups a free allocation of space based on the following calculation:
Total FTEs in a departmental group X 10 GB = Subsidized Allocation
This subsidized allocation will be provided as a block to the departmental group, sub- allocation within the client structure is the responsibility of the departmental groups. All questions regarding use and size of subsidized allocations will be directed to your departmental group IT department.
Note: 20% of departmental allocations is reserved for snapshots
Can my department group or unit get more space?
Additional storage above the provided allocation will be available for purchase at the rate of $1.50 per GB (Gigibyte) in 200 GB blocks. Please submit a Service Request to trigger this process.
What can I store on storage.unc.edu and is it secure?
The security model is designed to meet the base level of data security as defined by the UNC Security office. For more information, please see the ITS Information Security Controls Standard or Sensitive Information documents.
Examples of data that can be stored on the system are:
Human Resource data – including Work Performance reviews, Payroll information
Research Data that does not have a state or federally mandated security level such as HIPAA
Examples of data that may NOT be stored on the system are:
- Personal Health Information
- Credit Card Information
- Data Covered by HIPAA
- Data Covered by FERPA
What are snapshots and previous versions?
Snapshots are point in time recovery points of the NAS file systems. Previous Versions is a Microsoft functionality native to their operating systems. It allows users to restore data from snapshots. As an alternative restore solution, special directories called ~snapshots are published at the root of each file system. Non Microsoft clients can browse these read only directories and retrieve older versions of files and folders. Please see NAS / Secure NAS - Snapshots and Previous Versions for more details.
What help documentation is available for NAS?
An overview of SecureNAS.
Microsoft Teams NAS Services.
What protocols are supported?
The current NAS implementation supports the Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol. sFTP, webdav and NFSv4 are being considered for future support.
What is deduplication?
The NAS service is implemented on Netapp storage technology. Netapp provides a deduplication technology. File systems are scanned at night to look for common blocks of data within volumes. When common blocks are discovered, the systems transparently remove the duplicated blocks. Netapp routinely sees 20 to 30 percent of file systems regained through this implementation.
Is \storage.unc.edu available from off campus?
You must use the campus VPN service to connect to the service from off campus. Please see the VPN article for help.
What is the Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity model?
The NAS service relies on three levels of protection.
Clustered NAS Heads – The primary data center is configured as an active/passive cluster. If a clustered head fails, its partner automatically assumes its identity.
Snapshots – Point in time revision of file systems is available via snapshots. Snapshots are maintained for 30 days.
Data Mirror – All data is mirrored nightly to a second cluster in a different data center. If the primary cluster fails, the service will be moved to the secondary site. This is a manual process.