Archiving Information for P Drive
Introduction
The P Drive is the area on the CSU fileserver where staff can save their files in the knowledge that the Division of Information Technology will keep them safe and organise for them to be archived regularly. As file server space is limited, all staff are encouraged to regularly archive files that are important, yet are not regularly required.
By developing a regular archiving routine, you will ensure that your important files are archived and secure, as well as free up space, easing congestion on the P Drive File Servers.
Archiving and File Names
To effectively archive files, you need to ensure that your files follow specific file naming protocols. Due to the nature of the file system protocols used in computing, there is a maximum number of characters that must not be exceeded for file archiving to occur. At CSU, the maximum number of characters allowed is 200. When archiving files you need to ensure that the path name of the file does not exceed 200 characters. If it does exceed 200 then the data will not be archived
So just what is a path name? A path is the route through the file system to a particular file. A pathname (or path name) is the specification of that path.
For example, a file saved on the S Drive would have a path name of S:\Common\ Temp Folder Less Than 7 Days\file1.doc. All the characters including / and spaces count towards the character count. So for the above example, the Character count is 49.
Avoid setting up complex folder structures within the Archive Folder, as this many cause the character count to be exceeded beyond the 200 character limit. For more information, please contact the IT Service Desk or your local campus IT Trainer.
Archiving Options
File archiving takes place each evening and you need to place any files which need to be archived into your 'Archive' folder during the day if you want it to be archived that evening.
Because the P drive is exclusively yours the way you set up your folders is left entirely up to you. There are a number of ways you can set up your folders so you can keep track of them and use them to the best advantage.
When you archive your files you just need to drag the file to
your 'Archive' folder and drop it there and when you open up your
P drive the next day you will see that the file will be in the
'Archive' folder and will be preceded by a CD Icon 
. What this
means is that the file has been archived and you can now either
leave it where it is or move it back to the original folder in
which it was located.
There are a couple of different ways to organise your archived messages and some of these are explained below:
Archiving Method 1
Move your files to the 'Archive' folder and then move it back into
its original folder once it has been archived. You will be able
to tell which files have been archived because they will be preceded
by the CD icon ()
Archiving Method 2
Delete your 'Archive' folder and make a separate 'Archive' folder
within each of your main folders. This way you can drag any messages
you wish to archive into these folders and just leave them there.
You will know that they have been archived because they will
each have the CD icon ( ) but they will be sitting in a different
folder which will just contain those files from that folder which
you have archived. This will look like this:
Archiving Method 3
Duplicate your folder structure within the 'Archive' folder and
drag any files to be archived from their original folder into
the corresponding folder within the 'Archive' folder. You will
then know which files have been archived and they will be in
folders which you can readily recognise.
Conclusion
Archiving is an important part of ensuring the security of information stored on CSU File Servers. By adopting a regular archiving routine, you will ensure that your data is secure and can be retrieved. It also ensures that the CSU P Drive remains accessible and does not reach capacity, meaning that you will not be able to save data to your P Drive. Please remember that the P Drive is not the location for saving important University data. This should be saved on the S Drive.