What to use a share for?

• Files you want to share within your department or with other departments at the University.
• To store University (mission data) in a safe/secure central location.
• “Low Velocity” data: data which undergoes less than a 20% daily change rate, i.e. Microsoft Office documents, small databases (utilized by 1 or a very small number of users), disk-image storage (i.e. ISO, DMG), files whose updates/downloads  are not excessive.
  • Caveat: If your data undergoes more than a 20% daily change rate and does not require DR-backups, an SFS share may still be appropriate. Examples might include: Data with no possible DR-restoration composed of temporary files from a data conversion process, or storage of duplicate data, files whose master copy is elsewhere.

What not to use a share for?

• Files not related to the University mission. These include non-work related music files, images, movies, etc.
• “High Velocity” Data: data which undergoes more than a 20% daily rate of change. This type of data experiences a high daily percentage-of-change, and has a large impact on DR-backups. Examples might include: VMware, Hyper-V and VirtualBox virtual disk images, large/multi-user database files, or a scheduled/nightly staging area for mass data migration. For high velocity data, a virtual server may be a better option. See the Virtual Servers page on the Managed Services site. 
• Time Machine backups for Macs. The CrashPlan service offers this function.
• The Service is not intended to be used as a “replication target” for departments with their own existing file servers.
• Sensitive data that doesn't require the level of protection outlined in Cornell Policy 5.10.