The method used to share large files depends on the number of files, who and how many people you wish to share them with.

If you are sharing a single or small number of files with a small number of colleagues at the College, we recommend using OneDrive for Business.

If you are sharing multiple large files with colleagues at the College, you should set up a Sharepoint site.

If you are sharing large amounts of data with individuals external to the College, we recommend using SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol), the details of which are below.

File exchange was decomissioned by the College on 1 December 2022.

Secure File Transfer Protocol

SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) is principally used for file sharing. At the College, it is commonly used as a way of collaborating with other universities and colleagues in the field who wish to exchange large amounts of data - in term of large file size or large number of files or both. 

These cases include organisations where Imperial College staff are in a location that block access to external file sharing servers/services. In addition, it also makes it easier for collaboration to happen with certain sensitive locations (e.g. NHS sites). There is also a number of external health data suppliers who want to use SFTP to transfer data, and require Imperial College to store the data internally on campus.

Technical Details:

• All users of this service will need to have an Imperial College user account (including guest account).
• Access to this service is granted upon request only.
• Users will need to have an SFTP client to connect to this service.  if you need assistance.
• Users (both internally and externally) will need to connect to the following location to use this service SFTP.IC.AC.UK
• Typically for most users they will connect as follows, sftp [IC username]@sftp.ic.ac.uk e.g. sftp joebloggs@sftp.ic.ac.uk
• After the users login they will upload to their designated group area, where there will be a [ Group name ]-incoming folder where they should place their files (or pull their files from if they are downloading it)

 Other Key Points:

• Service will be resilient across two servers
• The service provides encryption in transit by default.
• Customers can rent encrypted storage if they need the data to be encrypted at rest (please contact ICT for further discussion)
• A default 100GB quota per group on a shared storage volume.
• 10 day retention period with automatic deletions.
• Messages will be provided at logon time to communicate with users regarding the service and retention period.
• Auditing of access will be enabled.
• SFTP protocol only for ingress and egress of data