Research-NAS (CIFS)

Owned by Lauren
Jul 31, 2024
1 min read

Work with small, specific sets of your research data in a network file share designed for use with account-based access permissions.

Important: We are phasing out this storage system as it’s at full capacity and reaching its end of life. We’re still supporting existing Research-NAS (CIFS) allocations, but are not offering any new allocations.

For new allocations, we have alternate, more feature-rich, storage solutions that are also accessible as network drives. We especially recommend Mediaflux which is SMB accessible and comes with greater capacity and better functionalities.

Network Attached Storage (NAS) provides dedicated file storage and access over a network. It is essentially a centralised repository that allows multiple users and client devices to retrieve and store data in a shared and secure environment. Our NAS service runs on NetApp (Network Appliance) technology, and comes in a choice of two access protocols – NFS or CIFS.

CIFS suitability

CIFS is ideal when security and user access control are essential, particularly in environments with Windows systems. It uses a username and password for mounting (users authenticate with a username and password to access shared files), making it a good choice for environments where user-specific access is required.

The CIFS version of our NAS service is for people who need to:

  • share files between Windows machines

  • control access via account permissions (usernames and passwords)

If this doesn’t sound like you, see our NFS version instead.