P: Drive Migration to OneDrive
ITS is retiring the personal (P) drive and transitioning our community to Microsoft OneDrive. To facilitate this change, we are migrating the data stored on the P: drive to OneDrive.
Faculty and staff with data on the P: drive migrated the summer of 2022. Students with P: drive data will migrate on January 10, 2023.
For questions or assistance during migration, contact the Technology Support Center.
Reason for the Change
ITS currently offers two network solutions for personal storage. Faculty, staff, and students have storage space on a personal P: drive, which is hosted on a university-managed file share, and a OneDrive account, which comes with our enterprise Microsoft Office 365 agreement. Both offer secure storage, but OneDrive delivers more contemporary capabilities, such as file sharing, concurrent editing, and integration among Office 365 applications. Other benefits include:
- 5 terabytes of storage, which is dramatically larger than the standard 75 gigabytes allocated on the P: drive
- Access from any location with an internet-connected device, such as a computer, smartphone, or tablet.
- Ability to sync files across multiple devices
The underlying hardware for the P: drive is approaching the end of its useable life. Rather than invest in a service with limited capabilities, we are retiring the P: drive and fully transitioning to the more feature-rich and future-looking OneDrive solution.
Before the Migration
No action from you is required. If you want to prepare yourself for the transition, we have a few tips:
- Remove unnecessary files from your P: drive. All files in the P: drive will be moved to your OneDrive. If you do not want them there, move them or delete them in advance.
- Check that you have OneDrive installed on your computer.
- Familiarize yourself with OneDrive. You can learn how to open OneDrive in your browser, set up OneDrive on your computer, upload files, and share files.
For questions or assistance during migration, you can reach out to the Technology Support Center or check out the help articles.
After the Migration
After migration ends, you will receive an email from ITS notifying you that the migration completed. At that point all files and folders on your P: drive will have moved to your OneDrive account. You can create, edit, and modify the files within the “PDrive” folder in OneDrive, or rearrange them in your OneDrive as you see fit.
For assistance using OneDrive, take a look at the help articles or contact the Technology Support Center.
FAQs
Q: My P drive didn’t disappear. It is still showing in my file explorer.
A: If your P: drive still appears in file explorer after your migration ends it will likely show a red ‘x’ on the icon and be inaccessible. You will no longer have access to the P: drive, so it is best to disconnect from it.
Q: When will my migration start?
A: ITS will begin migrating your files the evening of January 10th.
Q: My migration is finished and I am missing files from my P: drive.
A: Contact the Technology Support Center.
Q: I cannot connect to my P: drive.
A: Once the final migration occurs at the end of your migration window, you will no longer be able to access the P: drive. At that point, you can find all files and folders from the P: drive in the “PDrive” folder in your OneDrive account.
Q: How long do I keep my OneDrive account?
A: Your OneDrive account is part of your Office 365 licensing. You will keep the account as long as you are part of the university. Students will keep their account until graduation or separation, while employees will keep their account until their employment ends.
Q: Can I use Google Drive instead?
A: Not necessarily. Google Drive has a limited storage quota, and we recommend keeping files, especially large ones, on OneDrive.
Recommended Resources
Recording of the Microsoft-hosted training session, Get started with Microsoft OneDrive for Education. Sign in with your NetID and NetID password to view.