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 you can only access your storage from on campus. If you are off campus you will need to install the University VPN software or use our rds-ssh service – please see below for further information.
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 only current exceptions are NFS shares used on the IT Services HPC services (e.g., the Computational Shared Facility (CSF)). The Research Infrastructure team will usually make your storage available on such systems so you won’t have anything to do on those systems. The instructions below cannot be used to mount your CSF share 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, OS-X and also from Linux.
Information About the Examples
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$\snapped\replicated\myshare
# #
# #
# #
# # Your storage area (share) name will
# # be agreed with you and we will tell you
# # the exact details once we have allocated
# # your storage.
#
# Your faculty code will depend on which
# faculty you are located. We will tell you
# the code once we have allocated the storage.
# It is usually one of: bmh, eps, hum (or older codes fls, mhs)
So, in the examples you should replace:
mxyzpqr7with your username;epswith the appropriate faculty initials,if necessary (bmh,humand the older, but still active codes:fls, ormhs);mysharewith the name of your share;- and, if your share is not snapped and/or not replicated, using
unsnappedand/orunreplicatedinstead.
Your RDS share, when mapped in the usual way, will look just like other drives (e.g., your IT Services P-Drive).
- Locate the Map Network Drive… option:
Windows 10 and 11:
- Open This PC
- Click Map network drive in the row of icons at the top of the window
- Note: Home Editions of these version of Windows have proved problematic – access to storage can be intermittent, possibly depending which Windows updates have been applied.
Windows XP:- Right-click on My Computer and select Map network drive…
- In the Drive list select the drive letter you wish to use (e.g., R:).
- In the Folder box enter the path according to your faculty and mount point. For example
\\nasr.man.ac.uk\epsrss$\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. - 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.
10.9 (Maverick)
Mounting with Finder works fine — see instructions for 10.6 below.
To mount your share on MAC OS 10.7 and 10.8 (Lion and Mountain Lion)
Finder alone is not suitable for mounting and accessing your RDS share as there is an issue affecting navigation to a share mounted via Go to Server. (Note: This problem does not affect P drives on Isilon). We recommend the use of a script – myrdrive.command – , kindly provided by Ian Cottam, to mount your drive.
- Download the script from the link above or copy it into your preferred editor. Save it with a meaningful name, for example
myrdrive.command. - Set execute permissions for yourself: Open a terminal via Go > Utilities > Terminal and at the Terminal command line:
chmod u+rx myrdrive.command
- Run the script, filling out the appropriate details and supplying your central IT password as prompted. See below for example:
mac:~ mxyzpqr7$ ./myrdrive.command username: mxyzpqr7 drive name: myshare <---- Use the name given to you when your storage was allocated faculty: eps <---- Use the faculty code given in your storage path (bmh, eps, fls, mhs, hum, nonfac) ./myrdrive.command: using mxyzpqr7 from faculty of eps and volume myshare ./myrdrive.command: to change delete the file ~/.mountrdrive Password for nasr.man.ac.uk: mac:~ mxyzpqr7$You can also run the script by double clicking on it in Finder (provided you have suffixed it with .command and set the permissions as above).
- To ensure that your files remain visible in Finder and accessible from other apps drag and drop the share icon from the top middle of the toolbar to your sidebar.
- Your files will also be accessible via the command line under
/Volumes/myshare. - Once you have run the script it will retain the settings, so for future mounts it will just ask for your password. You should not have to do the drag and drop again, but it’s worth double checking the mount has appeared in your Finder sidebar each time.
To see an icon for the mount on your desktop (if not already enabled):
- In Finder, select Finder > Preferences… menu item.
- Select the General tab.
- Select the Connected servers tick-box.
You may need to re-open the Finder window from the desktop icon for the mounted share if Finder is not displaying the files in your Isilon share.
To mount your share on MAC OS 10.6 using Finder
- In the Go menu select Connect to Server.
- In Server Address enter the path to your share, preceding it with
smb://, for example:smb://nasr.man.ac.uk/epsrss$/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. - If you click the ‘+’ button it will be added to the Favourite Servers for future use.
- 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 see an icon for the mount on your desktop (if not already enabled):
- In Finder, select Finder > Preferences… menu item.
- Select the General tab.
- 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.
To mount your share on Linux do the following (for most distros you will need to use root or sudo):
- 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-utilspackage installed. - Next ensure an appropriate mount point exists, for example
mkdir /mnt/myshare
- 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.
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.
No. The “trash” feature works only on local drives, not remote drives.
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.