E-mail space safeguards

By Jaryd Wilson

Published Feb. 27, 2007

As the school year has progressed, students have accumulated e-mails in their Microsoft Webmail accounts. Some students have accumulated so much mail that their mailbox is now closed or full.

Students are allowed a quota of 40 megabytes. If their quota reaches 45 MB, they are no longer able to send messages. If it reaches 50 MB, they can no longer send or receive messages.

Terry Robb, Information and Access Technology Services spokesman, said students have voiced displeasure with the Webmail service, and as a result, MU is testing Windows Live Mail, which gives students a two-gigabyte quota.

"Right now we're running Live Mail as a pilot with about 65 students," Robb said. "Students are dissatisfied with the quota on Webmail, and Live Mail provides a much larger quota."

Although officials have yet decide whether to change, it is possible that MU could switch to Live Mail, which would make each student's quota 50 times more than it is with Webmail.

With a student Webmail account, there are many ways in which students can avoid this problem.

Because MU allows a limited quota, students must find ways to conserve it.

One way to do this is for students to delete unneeded messages from their inbox, and then permanently delete them from their deleted items folder.

If students wish to keep all of their messages, there are ways to do so without going over their 40 MB limit.

Robb said one of the ways to do this is to archive these files and back them up.

"The best thing to do is put the extra files on your hard drive if you want to back them up that way," Robb said. "In order to do this, you have to access your e-mail from a standard client such as Outlook, rather than a web-based client, because you can't archive files from Web-based clients like Webmail."

Robb said standard clients do not require users to go on the Internet, but they are still able to access their e-mail.

Once on an e-mail account from a standard client, users can archive their files and save them on a computer's hard drive.

Another way to back up the storage is through Bengal storage, which is a service provided to every MU student.

According to the IATS Web site, "Bengal provides every student with secure storage that can be accessed from any on or off-campus computer."

Bengal data is backed up nightly, so lost information can be retrieved, and files deleted by mistake can be restored. Every student gets 200 MB of no-charge Bengal space, and additional space is available for $4 per gigabyte per month.

Bengal storage is automatically available as a hard drive when students log onto a public-campus computer.

Students also can access it from their personal computer by connecting to the Bengal server.

Directions for connecting are available on the IATS Web site support page.

"Bengal storage is nice because any student can access it from their personal computer," Robb said. "It's nice to store larger files that aren't safe or efficient to send through e-mail."