Whenever you work with quota limits, you should use a standard set of policies on all systems; however, you typically, won’t want to enable all the policies. Instead, you’ll selectively enable policies and then use the standard NTFS features to control quotas on various volumes. If you want to enable quota limits, follow these steps:
1. Access Group Policy for the system (for example, a file server) with which you want to work. Access the Disk Quotas node by expanding Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, and then selecting Disk Quotas.
2. Double-tap or double-click Enable Disk Quotas. Select Enabled, and then tap or click OK.
3. Double-tap or double-click Enforce Disk Quota Limit. If you want to enforce disk quotas on all NTFS volumes residing on this computer, tap or click Enabled. Otherwise, tap or click Disabled, and then set specific limits on a per-volume basis. Tap or click OK.
4. Double-tap or double-click Specify Default Quota Limit And Warning Level. In the dialog box shown in Figure 4–6, select Enabled.
FIGURE 4–6 Enforce disk quotas in the Specify Default Quota Limit And Warning Level dialog box.
5. Under Default Quota Limit, set a default limit that’s applied to users when they first write to the quota-enabled volume. The limit doesn’t apply to current users or affect current limits in place. On a corporate share, such as a share used by members of a project team, a good limit is between 5 and 10 GB. Of course, this depends on the size of the data files that the users routinely work with, the number of users, and the size of the disk volume. Graphic designers and data engineers might need much more disk space.
6. To set a warning limit, scroll down in the Options window. A good warning limit is about 90 percent of the default quota limit, which means that if you set the default quota limit to 10 GB, you should set the warning limit to 9 GB. Tap or click OK.
7. Double-tap or double-click Log Event When Quota Limit Exceeded. Select Enabled so that limit events are recorded in the application log, and then tap or click OK.
8. Double-tap or double-click Log Event When Quota Warning Level Exceeded. Select Enabled so that warning events are recorded in the application log, and then tap or click OK.
9. Double-tap or double-click Apply Policy To Removable Media. Select Disabled so that the quota limits apply only to fixed media volumes on the computer, and then tap or click OK.
TIP To ensure that the policies are enforced immediately, access the Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy node, and then double-tap or double-click Configure Disk Quota Policy Processing. Select Enabled, and then select the Process even If The Group Policy Objects have Not Changed check box. Tap or click OK.
Enabling NTFS disk quotas on NTFS volumes
You can set NTFS disk quotas on a per-volume basis. Only NTFS volumes can have disk quotas. After you configure the appropriate group policies, you can use Computer Management to set disk quotas for local and remote volumes.
NOTE If you use the enforce Disk Quota Limit policy setting to enforce quotas, users are denied disk space if they exceed the quota. This overrides settings on the Quota tab on the NTFS volume.
To enable NTFS disk quotas on an NTFS volume, follow these steps:
1. Open Computer Management. If necessary, connect to a remote computer.
2. In the console tree, expand Storage, and then select Disk Management. The volumes configured on the selected computer are displayed in the details pane.
3. Using Volume List view or Graphical View, press and hold or right-click the volume with which you want to work, and then tap or click Properties.
4. On the Quota tab, select the Enable Quota Management check box, shown in Figure 4–7. If you already set quota management values through Group Policy, the options are unavailable and you can’t change them. You must modify options through Group Policy instead.
BEST PRACTICES Whenever you work with the Quota tab, pay particular attention to the Status text and the associated traffic light icon. Both change based on the state of quota management. If quotas aren’t configured, the traffic light icon shows a red light and the status is inactive or not configured. If the operating system is working or updating the quotas, the traffic light icon shows a yellow light and the status shows the activity being performed. If quotas are configured, the traffic light icon shows a green light and the status text states that the quota system is active.
5. To set a default disk quota limit for all users, select Limit Disk Space To. In the text boxes provided, set a limit in kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, or exabytes. Then set the default warning limit in the Set Warning Level To text boxes. Again, you’ll usually want the disk quota warning limit to be 90–95 percent of the disk quota limit.
FIGURE 4–7 After you enable quota management, you can configure a quota limit and quota warning for all users.
TIP Although the default quota limit and warning apply to all users, you can configure different levels for individual users. You do this in the Quota Entries dialog box. If you create many unique quota entries and don’t want to re-create them on a volume with similar characteristics and usage, you can export the quota entries and import them into a different volume.