Now you have uploaded you first files, it might be useful to get to know something about storing your data in SURFdrive. This page tells you something why and how your data is secured.


With SURFdrive, SURF complies with Dutch and European privacy legislation. The data is securely stored in the Netherlands and is never provided to third parties. The location of the data is always known. In addition, SURF does not provide any user data to third parties.

SURFdrive hasn't an encryption program built in the application. You can of course encrypt a file yourself with a third-party program. For example, use this Boxcryptor Classic.

For security reasons, you are regularly requested to log in again. For the desktop clients and apps, this is every 30 days. When you log in to the SURFdrive website with your browser, you always have to log in again after closing your browser.

SURFdrive users securely exchange files with each other. If you want to share a file or folder with a user who doesn't have access to SURFdrive, you can use the "Share link" option. SURFdrive creates a 'public link' for sharing, so that anyone who knows the link can access your shared file or folder. Basically, this also means that if someone accidentally guesses the link, they can access your shared file or folder, even if you didn't tell them you shared anything. You can protect the link with your own password, so that you can be sure that only certain people can access your file or folder.

In addition to password protection, you can also set an expiration date. This makes your shared file or folder unavailable after a certain date.

Any files and folders you delete are kept for 30 days so you can recover them. If your account is deleted (for example if you leave the institution), the institution determines how long the data is still available. Make sure you have transferred all data before your institution has denied you access.

This depends on the agreements you have with your institution. Agreements between you as a user and your institution are laid down in the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) or in a comparable document. SURFdrive does not impose any restrictions in this regard.

Go to Settings in the downloaded desktop client, then click Account and then Remove. This will disconnect your local SURFdrive folder from the account of your old institution. Add the account of your new institution and select the same local SURFdrive folder. Check Keep local data. This way, you can move all files to your new account and synchronize them with SURFdrive again. Be careful with files shared with you. You can find them in the Shared folder. Move them to a different folder, or delete them locally and ask the owner of the file to share it again with your new account.

All SURFdrive users receive the same amount of storage space, namely 500 GB. This amount cannot be adjusted.

Yes it does!

The management function automatically deletes old versions of your file. Thus, the maximum storage capacity is not reached.
The version control mechanism looks like this:

  • For the first second, we keep one version
  • For the first 10 seconds, we save one version every 2 seconds
  • For the first minute, we save one version every 10 seconds
  • For the first hour, we save one version every minute
  • For the first 24 hours, we save one version every hour
  • For the first 14 days, we save one version each day

All versions older than 14 days are automatically deleted. The versions follow this pattern every time a new version is made. The version control function never uses more than 50% of the available free space that the user currently has. Has this limit been exceeded? The oldest file versions are automatically deleted until the 50% limit is reached again.

  • No labels