What is a Disk Quota?

Disk quota is the storage limit of the specified disk in the computer, that is, the administrator can limit the disk space that users can use, and each user can only use the disk space within the maximum quota range.

Disk quota

Disk quotas can limit the disk space that can be used by a specified account, which can prevent other users from working properly or even affecting system operation due to excessive use of disk space by one user. in

Take Windows Server 2003 as an example to introduce the method of setting disk quota:

Step 1. Right-click in the My Computer window

Disk quota tracking for NTFS volumes and controlling disk space usage. Administrators can configure Windows to:

Prevents further disk space usage and logs events when the user exceeds the specified disk space limit (that is, the amount of disk space allowed to the user).

An event is logged when a user exceeds the specified disk space warning level (that is, the point at which the user approaches their quota limit).

When starting disk quotas, you can set two values: disk quota limit and disk quota warning level. For example, you can set the user's disk quota limit to 500 MB and the disk quota warning level to 450 MB. In this case, users can store up to 500 MB of files on the volume. If users store more than 450 MB of files on a volume, the disk quota system can be configured to log system events. Only members of the Administrators group can manage quotas on volumes. For instructions on setting disk quota values, see Assigning default quota values.

You can specify that users can exceed their quota limit. If you don't want to deny users access to the volume but want to track the disk space usage of each user, enabling quotas without limiting disk space usage is very useful. You can also specify whether events are logged regardless of whether the user exceeds the quota warning level or the quota limit.

When volume quotas are enabled, the system automatically tracks new user volume usage from that value.

As long as the volume is formatted with the NTFS file system, quotas can be initiated on local volumes, network volumes, and removable drives. In addition, the network volume must be shared from the root directory of the volume, and the removable drive must be shared. Windows installation will automatically upgrade volumes formatted with the NTFS version in Windows NT.

Because compressed files are tracked by their uncompressed size, you cannot use file compression to prevent users from exceeding their quota limit. For example, if a 50 MB file is 40 MB after compression, Windows will calculate the quota limit based on the original 50 MB file size.

Instead, Windows tracks the use of compressed folders and calculates quota limits based on the size of the compression. For example, if a 500 MB folder is 300 MB after compression, Windows only calculates the quota limit to 300 MB.