Beginning in October 2022, changes are coming to the PennBox service which may affect some users.
New storage limits for PennBox accounts
Effective October 18, 2022, the storage limit for each PennBox user account will be set to 1 TB. For users who exceed this storage limit, upon review and on a case-by-case basis, a storage limit of 5 TB or 5TB+ will be offered at an additional cost starting in FY2023*. The PennBox service team will work with IT providers in Schools/Centers to identify users near our default thresholds and/or those “high usage” user populations, those that are at or above the 5TB limit to either mitigate their usage to nominal levels, offer the larger storage option, or suggest another ISC storage service.
*Storage costs will be determined by end of calendar year.
Process for periodic deprovisioning and archiving
Effective October 25, 2022, a new rolling account deprovisioning and archiving cadence, with three-month account and twelve-month data management interval process will be put into place.
- Accounts from inactive users will be identified and deprovisioned
- Data from those inactive accounts will be archived
- At regular intervals, data from older archives will be deleted
For detailed information about the timing of inactive account identification, deprovisioning, and archive deletion, please refer to our PennBox FAQ (click the item What happens to my account when I’m no longer eligible to use PennBox?)
Impact of changes
- PennBox users should be mindful not to exceed their 1 TB storage limit and take steps not to consume usage beyond that. PennBox is meant for work-related collaboration purposes: as such, users should keep personal data (e.g. pictures, videos, or other backup data) on personal storage devices or storage services. Users who need additional storage should talk to their IT support providers.
- PennBox users should plan with their collaborators to make alternate arrangements for a shared folder owned by a departing user. These resources should be re-hosted by transferring ownership to an active user.
- PennBox users should be especially aware of any issues in trying to save regularly to their shared folders. If they notice any errors, it’s possible that some of their shared folders could be owned by inactive users
For further information
Please see the PennBox service page or its FAQ. Questions about PennBox usage should be directed to users’ IT support providers.