COPY AND MOVE FILESIN THIS EXERCISE, YOU SEE THE EFFECTS THAT COPYING...

10-39Lesson 3 Managing Disk Quotas

Lesson 3: Managing Disk Quotas

You use disk quotas to manage storage growth in distributed environments. Disk quo-

tas allow you to allocate disk space to users based on the files and folders that they

own. You can set disk quotas, quota thresholds, and quota limits for all users and for

individual users. You can also monitor the amount of hard disk space that users have

used and the amount that they have left against their quota.

After this lesson, you will be able to■

Describe the purpose of disk quotas

■

Set disk quotas for users

■

Determine the status of disk quotas

■

Monitor disk quotas

■

Identify guidelines for using disk quotas

Estimated lesson time: 30 minutes

Overview of Disk Quotas

Windows XP Professional tracks disk quotas and controls disk usage on a per-user, per-

volume basis. Windows XP Professional tracks disk quotas for each volume, even if the

volumes are on the same hard disk. Because quotas are tracked on a per-user basis,

every user’s disk space is tracked regardless of the folder in which the user stores files.

Disk quotas can be applied only to Windows XP Professional NTFS volumes.

Table 10-2 describes the characteristics of Windows XP Professional disk quotas.

Table 10-2

Disk Quota Characteristics and Descriptions

Characteristic Description

Disk usage is based on

Windows XP Professional calculates disk space usage for users

file and folder ownership.

based on the files and folders that they own. When a user copies

or saves a new file to an NTFS volume or takes ownership of a

file on an NTFS volume, Windows XP Professional charges the

disk space for the file against the user’s quota limit.

Disk quotas do not use

Windows XP Professional ignores compression when it calculates

compression.

hard disk space usage. Users are charged for each uncompressed

byte, regardless of how much hard disk space is actually used.

This is done partially because file compression produces different

degrees of compression for different types of files. Different

uncompressed file types that are the same size might end up

being very different sizes when they are compressed.

Free space for applications

When you enable disk quotas, the free space that Windows XP

is based on quota limit.

Professional reports to applications for the volume is the amount

of space remaining within the user’s disk quota limit.

You use disk quotas to monitor and control hard disk space usage. System administra-

tors can do the following:

■

Set a disk quota limit to specify the amount of disk space for each user.

■

Set a disk quota warning to specify when Windows XP Professional should log an

event, indicating that the user is nearing his or her limit.

■

Enforce disk quota limits and deny users access if they exceed their limit, or allow

them continued access.

■

Log an event when a user exceeds a specified disk space threshold. The threshold

could be when users exceed their quota limit or when they exceed their warning

level.

After you enable disk quotas for a volume, Windows XP Professional collects disk

usage data for all users who own files and folders on the volume, which allows you to

monitor volume usage on a per-user basis. Even if you do not limit the disk space avail-

able to users, disk quotas provide an effective means of monitoring the disk space con-

sumed by users.

By default, only members of the Administrators group can view and change quota set-

tings. However, you can allow users to view quota settings.

How to Set Disk Quotas

You can enable disk quotas and enforce disk quota warnings and limits for all users

or for individual users. If you want to enable disk quotas, open the Properties dialog

box for a disk, click the Quota tab, and configure the options that are described in

Table 10-3 and displayed in Figure 10-18.

Table 10-3

Quota Tab Options

Option Description

Enable Quota Management Select this check box to enable disk quota management.

Select this check box so that when users exceed their hard disk

Deny Disk Space To Users

Exceeding Quota Limit

space allocation, they receive an Out Of Disk Space message

and cannot write to the volume.

Do Not Limit Disk Usage Click this option when you do not want to limit the amount of

hard disk space for users.

Limit Disk Space To Configure the amount of disk space that users can use.

Set Warning Level To Configure the amount of disk space that users can fill before

Windows XP Professional logs an event, indicating that a user is

nearing his or her limit.