Staff and Faculty
Review preliminary information and initial guidance for the upcoming change on our Google Storage Quotas landing page. Below you will find detailed information on how to find your existing usage, how to reduce data, as well as recommendations from IT for your storage needs moving forward.
How to reduce Google Storage
Google mail can take up significant storage in your account, especially as you use the same inbox over the years. Many of these emails include large attachments or files from external sources. Review the help resources below to identify and delete unwanted emails. Exercise caution when deleting emails and keep college policies on data retention requirements in mind.
Tip: Review and delete emails in your Spam folder
Tip: Empty the trash in your email. Emails that are emptied from the trash are irrecoverable
Google Drive has been used as one of the go-to services for collaborating and storing files. As quotas are rolled out, users must reevaluate how they use Google Drive in order to stay within new quota limits. Google Drive should no longer be used to archive or backup data. We also advise against using Google Drive to migrate or move data when your institutional machine is replaced.
Google Drive should be used for active working and collaboration files. Refer to the storage matrix for additional information on where files should be stored, as well as offline storage options. Review the help resources below to identify, archive, and delete files. Exercise caution when deleting or moving files and keep college policies on data retention requirements in mind.
Tip: Empty the trash in your Drive to clear storage. Files that are emptied from the trash are irrecoverable
Tip: Review and delete large or unnecessary files from your Google Drive.
Tip: Move personal* files to your own storage (e.g., a personal Google account, your personal storage). Your LC Google account is only for college use. Please refer to the Responsible Use Policy. (*Personal files reference non-LC files. Ex: Dog photos, family videos, personal files, personal sensitive files)
As a reminder, Google Photos was disabled as part of the storage reduction campaign. Review the Google Photos Discontinuation for more information. If your Google Photos has been disabled but you still have Google Photos in storage, email itservice@lclark.edu to request temporary reactivation and utilize the guides below to migrate and delete photos.
Helpsheet: Utilizing Google Takeout and deleting photos from trash.
Avoid data loss
Review the help sheet on Navigating Shared Files in Google Drive.
Storage recommendations and options
Review IT’s recommendation for best practices when moving files, storing files, and the options that are available to you.
Policies
As you complete these tasks, please keep in mind relevant College policies such as FERPA, Responsible Use of Technology Resources, Records Retention, Data Custodianship and Access policy.
How to get help
In order to assist users with the implementation of quotas, in person and virtual sessions with IT staff have been arranged. Below you will find information on the 4 sessions that will be hosted in November.
Wednesday, November 9th: 9:30am - 11:30am, virtual
Timeline of Changes
- Establish individual storage quota
- Share best practices for storage by file type with a comprehensive list of supported file storage solutions
- Maintain storage at sustainable levels under the total pooled storage available to Lewis & Clark College. We are happy to report that we have reduced our overall storage by 50 TB (a 38% reduction in our overall storage) since the start of Q1.
- Provide ongoing training, helpsheets, and communication about effective data storage practices
- Shared Drives for Departments/Committees/Research
- Procedures for purchasing additional storage where appropriate
- Deleted suspended former student accounts starting July 1 with helpsheets to avoid data loss with the deletion of these accounts.
- Reminded the community of the account deletions and provided drop-in support.
- Conducted meetings with top 25 storage users to assess needs and recommended alternative storage solutions
- Deleted suspended former employee accounts starting June 1. Instituted process of retention of Shared documents for one year to prevent data loss.
- Notified the community and Google Photos users of the decision to turn off the Google Photos service on July 1 with helpsheets on how to save/download photos.
- Made an informed decision on the continued availability of the Google Photos app.
- Conducted meetings with video super-users to assess needs and recommended alternative storage and streaming solutions
- Rolled out a Spring Cleaning Campaign to help users review and remove unnecessary files in Gmail and Drive along with help sheets and videos and a contest to reduce storage
- Conducted analysis of current storage usage with reporting tools
- Sent out Information and Introductory email about changes coming in Google to employees and students
FAQs
Lewis & Clark Google accounts should be used for email and active (not archival), collaborative work for the college.
Data stored in your Lewis & Clark Google account is impacted, including files from Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.
Strategically reduce your storage in Drive and Gmail, move or delete storage intensive multimedia files, move or delete archival work off of Google. See the storage matrix for alternative storage options.
Email communication, not archival storage. In an era of unlimited storage it was common practice to keep all emails to be able to search for conversations and documents, however this is no longer possible. It is best to store past/archival critical communications and attachments on your computer, an external hard drive, or on our network storage (LCFiles) depending on the nature of the data. We also recommend linking to Google Drive files in email rather than sending attachments to reduce the storage impact of email communications.
We recommend that everyone has a personal storage account in addition to a Lewis & Clark Google account as a place to store personal files and communications. You can sign up for a free personal gmail account here.
Use Google Takeout to transfer content to your personal account. LC data must remain on LC services.
Reach out to itservice@lclark.edu so we can temporarily allow you access to your photos for migration and deletion.
Right click the file in Google Drive and “Move to trash”. You can also reference the How to reduce Google Storage section above for additional help.
Individuals are not able to purchase more Google storage for themselves for their Lewis & Clark Google accounts (you can certainly purchase more digital storage for your personal Google accounts). College data should not be maintained under personal accounts.
Coming soon, departments and grant recipients will be able to purchase storage for their departmental Shared Drives in 10TB increments for $1800/year. If you are interested, please contact itservice@lclark.edu to learn more.
No, files shared with you only impact the file owner’s storage. Shared drive files count against the total pooled storage available to our institution, not against an individual’s storage allotment.
LCFiles is the place to store data that might be important to Lewis & Clark College as an institution and/or contains confidential information that should be backed up (J:Drive for departmental folders and H:Drive for individual folders). LCFiles is Lewis & Clark’s supported file storage system. Data stored in LCFiles if fully recoverable for up to a year.
Each LC User has a combined quota of 25 GB of storage space for their J and H drive files. You may submit a ticket to the IT Service Desk to explain your storage needs to request increased storage space.
After vetting many possible cloud photo solutions, IT recommends Flickr Pro if your department needs extensive photo storage with secure sharing options. If you need a video storage solution or to manage a photo production workflow, please contact itservice@lclark.edu and request a consultation appointment with an IT expert.
Departmental Shared Drives belong to a team rather than an individual. Even if members of the team leave, the contents of the Shared Drive remain. Shared Drives are not part of your individual Google Workspace account and therefore do not count against your individual storage quota. They do, however, count against Lewis & Clark’s overall Google Workspace storage quota, and are therefore limited to 25 GB per departmental Shared Drive.
Departmental accounts are primarily used for departmental email or maintenance of departmental documents. All files and emails belong to that departmental account (limited to 25GB) and not the institution as a whole.
Information Technology is located in Watzek Library on the Undergraduate Campus.
MSC: 97
email ITservice@lclark.edu
voice 503-768-7225
fax 503-768-7228
Chief Information Officer Adam Buchwald
Information Technology
Lewis & Clark
615 S. Palatine Hill Road MSC 97
Portland OR 97219