File Retention and Recovery

Information Services managed systems 

Information Services, on behalf of the University, maintain secure backups of files held on Information Services managed systems in accordance with the Backup and archiving of data policy.

To comply with data protection legislation, Information Services retain these backups for the following, limited time periods: 

Storage System

Retention period 

Recovery instructions 

Personal drives (M drive)  

90 days 

Request a restore from Information Services

Shared drives 

90 days 

Self-service restore instructions
 

CALM 

18 months

No restore available

Public Computer D drive/Desktop 

7 days 

 

Files held in third party solutions (e.g. Panopto, Office 365) are subject to the following separate, specific agreements 

System 

Retention period 

Recovery instructions 

Blackboard 

 

 

Office 365 email deleted items 

 93 days

Self-service restore instructions
 

Office 365 OneDrive deleted items  

 93 days

Self-service restore instructions

Office 365 Teams chats 

 

 

SharePoint deleted items

 93 days

Self-service restore instructions

Zoom recordings

90 days

 

Physical hard drives 

Information Services does not recommend that you store documents on hard drives or USB drives. If you do, you should ensure that you regularly back this up and do not rely on a single copy.

If you lose work or study related files files from a hard drive, including external hard drives and pen drives it may be possible to recover these. The hard drive must be working. Please contact Information Service to request this.