WUNC storage uses a three-tiered storage structure which allows for higher speed and accessibility and more security for our archived files.

•   Tier 1 (ready storage) refers to our everyday storage drives (F-S). This Tier is designed for high speed, high usage. The fewer files on this drive, the faster the access. And, the more space on this drive, the more recovery space is available (which allows for accidentally deleted files to be recovered). 

•   Tier 2 (secondary storage) will be located on the W drive which can be accessed via X:\!New Drives\WDrive(various). This is for files that are not accessed as frequently, and in general are finished products. The files here will be read only.

•   Tier 3 (long term storage) are the permanent archives. These files are compressed and stored on slower media that is designed for long term storage. The files will still be accessible, and can be restored via a ticket request.

All three Tiers will have storage locations in both Chapel Hill and Durham, and the files will be synchronized between them for redundancy.

Files older than six months but younger than two years will be moved to the Tier 2 (W Drive), and files older than two years will be moved to Tier 3 (Permanent Archives).

The files on Tier 2 and Tier 3 will retain their file structures. For instance, if the file name is S:\MyFiles\October 2019, the Tier 2 file will be W:\MyFiles\October2019. 

Important: Because the files on Tier 2 are read only, if you create another file with the same name under the same folder on a Tier 1 drive, it will not overwrite the original file on the W Drive, and may be lost. So, if you copy a file back from Tier 2 and make edits, please be sure to rename the file with a unique file name. Many of you already do this (i.e. putting edit dates in the file name) so it should not be an issue.