Accessing Storage

This page shows how to make your allocated storage available on your desktop / laptop. You will only be able to do this once your Research Data Storage area has been allocated and you have been informed of the path to the storage.

Note that if you are off campus you will first need to install the University VPN software or use our rds-ssh service – please see below for further information.

What does an RDS share look like?

Most RDS shares look just like IT Services P-drives – you mount the share on your desktop/laptop as another drive letter (Windows), Remote Volume (macOS) or mounted directory (Linux).

The exceptions are NFS shares, used on the IT Services HPC services (e.g., the Computational Shared Facility (CSF)). The Research Infrastructure team will make your storage available on such systems for you. The instructions below cannot be used to mount your CSF storage on your laptop/desktop, please see our information about SSHFS for how to do that.

Below, we outline how to access a RDS share from MS Windows, macOS and also from Linux.

Information About the Examples

IT staff will tell you the actual path/name to use once your storage space has been allocated.

In some of the examples below, we assume, for illustration purposes, that your username is

mxyzpqr7              # Sample username used in our examples.
                      # Use your username instead!

and the path to your RDS share is:

\\nasr.man.ac.uk\epsrss$\snapped\replicated\myshare
                  #                            #
                  #                            #
                  #                            #
                  #                            # Your storage area (share) name will
                  #                            # be agreed with you and we will tell you
                  #                            # the exact details once we have allocated
                  #                            # your storage.
                  #
                  # Your faculty code will depend on which
                  # faculty you are located. We will tell you
                  # the code once we have allocated the storage.
                  # It is usually one of: bmh, eps, hum (or older codes fls, mhs)

So, in the examples you should replace:

  • mxyzpqr7 with your username;
  • eps with the appropriate faculty initials,if necessary (bmh, hum and the older, but still active codes: fls, or mhs);
  • myshare with the name of your share;
  • and, if your share is not snapped and/or not replicated, using unsnapped and/or unreplicated instead.

How do I access (use) my RDS share from MS Windows?

Your RDS share, when mapped in the usual way, will look just like other drives (e.g., your IT Services P-Drive).

  1. Locate the Map Network Drive… option:
    Windows 10 and 11:
    1. Open This PC
    2. Click Map network drive in the row of icons at the top of the window
      (Note: Home Editions of these version of Windows have proved problematic and access to storage can be intermittent.)
  2. In the Drive list select the drive letter you wish to use (e.g., R:).
  3. In the Folder box enter the path according to your faculty and mount point. For example 
    \\nasr.man.ac.uk\epsrss$\snapped\replicated\myshare
                  #                            #
                  #                            # Use the name given to you when
                  #                            # your storage was allocated.
                  #
                  # Use the faculty code given to you
                  # when your storage was allocated.
  4. When asked for a username (and password) enter either of the following for the username (but use your actual username) and then your central University password (the same password used to access UoM email for example): 
    ds\mxyzpqr2

    or

    mxyzpqr2@ds.man.ac.uk

Note

You may come across an issue where you cannot access some files due to an inherent maximum path length for accessing CIFS share under Windows.

This happens if you have a deep folder structure and use long names for actual folders and/or files.

If so this can be got around by making a separate mounting but lower down the tree structure, ideally at the level of the folder containing the files you wish to access.

How do I access my RDS share from macOS?

To mount your share on macOS ***Versions OLDER than 15.x**** using Finder

  1. In the Go menu select Connect to Server.
  2. In Server Address enter the path to your share, preceding it with smb://, for example:
    smb://nasr.man.ac.uk/epsrss$/snapped/replicated/myshare
  3. Click Connect and when prompted enter your IT Services username and password. A window showing the files and folders in the share should then appear.
    The share will also be visible under the Shared submenu on the left of your Finder window.

To mount your share on macOS ***Versions 15.x and  NEWER*** using Finder

  1. In the Go menu select Connect to Server.
  2. In Server Address enter the path to your share, preceding it with smb://ds\<your_username_here>:*, for example:
    smb://ds\a12345bc:*nasr.man.ac.uk/epsrss$/snapped/replicated/myshare
  3. Where it says “Password” enter your University password.
  4. Click ‘Connect’.

Further tips for macOS users

If you click the ‘+’ button it will be added to the Favourite Servers for future use.

To see an icon for the mount on your desktop (if not already enabled):

  1. Click the Finder icon in the Dock, then choose Finder > Settings (or Preferences on older macOS versions) from the menu bar.
  2. Select the General tab.
  3. Select the Connected servers tick-box.

You may need to re-open the Finder window from the desktop icon for the mounted share if Finder is not displaying the files in your Isilon share.

How do I access my RDS share from Linux?

To mount your share on Linux do the following (for most distros you will need to use root or sudo):

  1. Ensure that you have the required utilities installed for mounting CIFS filesystems, for example, on a RedHat/Scientific Linux or Debian/Ubuntu distribution, you should have the cifs-utils package installed.
  2. Next ensure an appropriate mount point exists, for example 
    mkdir /mnt/myshare
  3. Finally, mount your share, for example: 
    mount -t cifs -o username=mxyzpqr7,domain=ds.man.ac.uk,uid=$(id -u),gid=$(id -g) \
    '//nasr.man.ac.uk/epsrss$/snapped/replicated/myshare' /mnt/myshare/
                       #                           #
                       #                           # Use the name given to you
                       #                           # when your storage was allocated
                       #
                       # Use the faculty code given to you when your storage was allocated.
                       # The single quotes around '//nasr....' are important!

    Please note that even though you will appear to own every folder and file, you will only be able to modify those files for which you have read-write permission.

Step 3 above will mount your storage as being owned by your username and group. However if you wish to mount the storage so that it is owned by root.root (which will be read-only for all users) then use the command:

mount -t cifs -o username=mxyzpqr7,domain=ds.man.ac.uk \
    '//nasr.man.ac.uk/epsrss$/snapped/replicated/myshare' /mnt/myshare
                       #                           #
                       #                           # Use the name given to you 
                       #                           # when your storage was allocated
                       #
                       # Use the faculty code given to you when your storage was allocated.
                       # The single quotes around '//nasr....' are important!

If you expect to mount this share multiple times, then it makes sense to create an entry in your filesystem table, /etc/fstab, like this:

//nasr.man.ac.uk/epsrss$/snapped/replicated/myshare    /mnt/myshare/ \
    cifs user,noauto,username=mxyzpqr7,domain=ds.man.ac.uk 0 0
                                                            #
                                                            # The 0 0 is only used
                                                            # in /etc/fstab, not the
                                                            # command-line methods above.

replacing mxyzpqr7 with your username. Thereafter, to mount your share you need only type:

mount /mnt/myshare

and enter your central IT password when prompted.

Some Frequently Asked Questions

I’m stuck? Who can I ask for help?

Please use the appropriate RDS form on the Getting Help section of our website.

Access Lists — who can access the share?

Each share has an access list associated with it: only users on this list can access the share.

How do I get someone added to an access list?

Please use the appropriate RDS form on the Getting Help section of our website.

Does the Microsoft “trash” feature work on RDS shares?

No. The “trash” feature works only on local drives, not remote drives.

How do I access RDS Shares from Off-Campus?

You should use either the University VPN (details below) or the rds-ssh service to access RDS shares from off campus.

The University VPN (Virtual Private Network) must be used to access RDS shares from off campus. This is needed from any kind of device. It is also needed when using the University UoM Wi-Fi (but is not needed when connected via Eduroam). Details of installing and using the VPN software are available at the University VPN software page.

Last modified on October 14, 2025 at 9:07 am by Paul Mulherin