Over the years more and more people have been asking for a way to be able to store files in one place and be able to get to them from anywhere, whether on or off of campus. ITS has come up with different solutions along the way but these solutions have always been for faculty and staff only. Now it is the students turn.

Over the summer of 2006 ITS purchased a product called WebDrive from South River Technologies. This product will allow students to have and connect to a new file storage space which has never been provided before. Students can now save up to 200MB of files to this space and access it from anywhere in the world. ITS is able to provide this software to all students and they are welcome to download it at anytime, anywhere. In addition to this service students will also be able to go to the ITS General Purpose Lab and their file storage space will automatically be available when they log in. All this makes it extremely easy for students to be able to work on projects on and off campus.

This is all available because of a way of connecting called WebDAV (see below). Yes WebDrive uses WebDAV. But the product can do much more. For many years students have had access to some space that has traditionally been called Osprey space. This is where the versatility of the product really shines. WebDrive has the capability to connect to Osprey as well as the new UNF Storage. It connects to Osprey using SFTP (secure file transfer protocol) (see below) so you are assured to have a safe connection.

To begin using WebDrive simply download the compressed file at http://help.unf.edu/downloads/WebDrive/webdrive.zip and follow the instructions for installing and connecting to the student UNF Storage space or to the UNF Osprey space.

To recap WebDrive will make life easier by providing one simply view of all storage areas provided by ITS as well as allowing you to connect from anywhere in the world.


What is WebDAV?

WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning. That is a mouthful but to put it simply it is a way to connect to storage space using the standard language of the internet, HTTP. Ever notice that in front of most addresses on the internet? (http://www.unf.edu).

For more information please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webdav

What is SFTP?

SFTP stands for Secure (or SSH) File Transfer Protocol. This is a way of securely transferring files from one place to another.

For more information please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_file_transfer_protocol