Koldov Posted September 9, 2025 Posted September 9, 2025 Probably some silly questions from an old school mentality, but for those that have made the jump... If we were to upload all of our current onsite file server shared drives into a Google drives: How would we recreate all the hundreds of individual permissions? Would we need some sort of 'master' account for the drives to sit under? Say we've got a Q drive (we've all got one of those right?) where would I even upload it to? Is there a best practise for this, or a guide somewhere?
DGardiner Posted September 9, 2025 Posted September 9, 2025 12 minutes ago, Koldov said: Probably some silly questions from an old school mentality, but for those that have made the jump... If we were to upload all of our current onsite file server shared drives into a Google drives: How would we recreate all the hundreds of individual permissions? Would we need some sort of 'master' account for the drives to sit under? Say we've got a Q drive (we've all got one of those right?) where would I even upload it to? Is there a best practise for this, or a guide somewhere? Permissions: you dont (there was a beta a few months back with per folder permissions, not sure if thats out now or requires a licence tier) the drive is the permission, just split it into multiple drives with the access as required. Make yourself the manager to get going add the groups with the relevant access levels and take it from there and remove yourself in admin if you feel the need. 1
TheHyperTechie Posted September 9, 2025 Posted September 9, 2025 (edited) First thing I did here was off load the file server into Google Drive. We were running a 10 year old dell tower though... stuck on 2012 R2. Depending on the size of the school etc, could you not sit down with the head and a staff list and ask who requires access to what? I was fortunate that I built an RBAC system for our shares so certain user types & groups had access to their designated areas only. This made it easier when re-setting up the areas in Google. In terms of uploading the shares, I just installed the drive client onto the server and manually uploaded from there, under a different account to my own. It took a while, but was achievable. To be honest, it was actually a good bit of "admin" as we deleted lots of old files. In total, if I recall correctly - I transferred over about 1.2TB worth of files in a couple of days. Edited September 9, 2025 by HyperTech 1
Koldov Posted September 9, 2025 Author Posted September 9, 2025 45 minutes ago, HyperTech said: First thing I did here was off load the file server into Google Drive. We were running a 10 year old dell tower though... stuck on 2012 R2. Depending on the size of the school etc, could you not sit down with the head and a staff list and ask who requires access to what? I have built the current servers and created all drives and permissions, so I have a good working knowledge of who needs what permissions. 45 minutes ago, HyperTech said: In terms of uploading the shares, I just installed the drive client onto the server and manually uploaded from there, under a different account to my own. A different account to your own? Did you make a 'school' account, I presume this is where the shared drives sit in terms of who actually 'owns' it? 45 minutes ago, DGardiner said: the drive is the permission, just split it into multiple drives with the access as required. Make yourself the manager to get going add the groups with the relevant access levels and take it from there and remove yourself in admin if you feel the need. So, Google groups as in Security Groups like the current file server and share with the group. Splitting into separate drives is going to be interesting... But we are losing FSRM, onsite virus checking/alerting, on site backup, scan to folder... and probably a million other things I haven't thought of yet! 45 minutes ago, HyperTech said: In total, if I recall correctly - I transferred over about 1.2TB worth of files in a couple of days. We are currently on the free version, am I right in thinking this is 100TB of pooled storage? Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals 100 TB total for all End Users
TheHyperTechie Posted September 9, 2025 Posted September 9, 2025 10 minutes ago, Koldov said: I have built the current servers and created all drives and permissions, so I have a good working knowledge of who needs what permissions. - Ah ok, that makes sense. Sorry, may have misread, I assumed you weren't sure on how the current (server) side ones were setup permission wise. A different account to your own? Did you make a 'school' account, I presume this is where the shared drives sit in terms of who actually 'owns' it? - Yes, so I used a general administrator account, this account would be the "manager" of the shared drive and also the "owner". So, Google groups as in Security Groups like the current file server and share with the group. Splitting into separate drives is going to be interesting... But we are losing FSRM, onsite virus checking/alerting, on site backup, scan to folder... and probably a million other things I haven't thought of yet! We are currently on the free version, am I right in thinking this is 100TB of pooled storage? - Correct. 100TB of pooled storage on fundamentals. Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals 100 TB total for all End Users
Koldov Posted September 10, 2025 Author Posted September 10, 2025 (edited) OK, so as a long time admin of a file server, Google Drive is about to completely blow my mind! I created a Google Drive OU, I created a Google Drive user, I made them admin, I signed in, I went to Drive, I created shared drives... so now I've created these drives the Google Drive user is the admin and owner of them, right? Wrong! I went to the shared drive 'settings' in Drive to change some things... What?! A little internet searching later I find that the 'organisation' owns the files and folders in all drives created as 'shared' drives... so I'm not sure there was any point in creating the Google Drive user as the drives don't seem to reside in the account as such and it just labels it as the Creator/Manager, so I can just create and change all the shared drive settings with my main admin account anyway as there is no individual 'owner'. Unless the answer is to make the folders (drives) in that account like a personal 'My Drive' as 'root' and then share them (however this also this seems to reduce the sharing options)...? Also confusing is the fact that when using this method if the file is removed from the shared person's view it seems to disappear out of the shared folder into the 'root' folder of the 'owner'... What's also troubling to me is that when it was setup, pretty much all of the SLT were made Super Admins. This means that even if I set-up these drives with only me as 'Manager' and all relevant staff as 'Content Managers' they can still change ANY setting for it with a couple of clicks in the Admin Console (as I've just found external sharing has been turned on in a the Staff and SLT OUs and that was NOT me)... So, knowing that a few of them are rather gung-ho about security/GDPR and such, I doubt it will be long before the whole 'Staff' or 'Admin' drive is suddenly shared with the whole world... Although I should, I don't know if I can justify telling the Headteacher and the rest of the SLT that they can no longer be a Google Super Admins as I don't trust them... Edited September 10, 2025 by Koldov
mavhc Posted September 10, 2025 Posted September 10, 2025 Unmake them super admins now, if they complain say I told you to do that/gdpr/cybersecurity/russian hackers/ncsc told you to 1 1
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