One thing worth activating on any server hosted user shares (hosted user profiles, redirected “My Document” folders, or folders assigned on a per-project basis - by using Active Directory groups) is Windows Disk Quota Management. I see it turned off, its default state on new Server 2003 installs, all the time. Many admins assume that it’s only useful if they plan to enforce user quotas, while many of them don’t spend the time to use quotas right.

So, on any server: right click on the drive letter > select the “Quota” tab > check the “Enable Quote Management” box > make sure “Do not limit disk usage” is checked and then click OK. Quota Management is now enabled without any quotas being established or enforced. Revisit the Disk’s Quota tab in an hour (or less for smaller domains) and click the “Quota Entries” button at the bottom of the tab. A window will open to display a per-user list of disk usage. That’s some good info to have, even if quotas aren’t going to be enforced (and it’s accessible from WMI scripts, and I may share some scripts to harvest it at a later date).

The reason most admins never implement quotas is that they assume the only way to do so is the “Limit disk space to…” option in the Disk’s Quota tab. What good is it to set a quota if a few users are constantly bumping into it (ie: Administrator, your supervisor, and some C-level Exec who makes a lot of noise every time he can’t use more disk space). …thankfully Server 2003 supports per-user quotas. Revisit the “Quota Entries” window and right-click on any user-name > select “Properties” from the menu. That’s it! Per-user quotas can be configured from this pop-up. Unless your server is sporting a few spare terabytes, I would recommend adding quotas for everyone, including the C-level Exec. Try to set a quota that spares a few GB of disk space. With a few GB spared from disk-hogs there aren’t 90 other users who can’t save anything to the server. Plus, if your disk-hog is an Executive, they’ll sometimes pass on enough budget dollars to buy new disk space.

One Response to “Using Windows Quota Managment to Gather Per-User Disk Usage and to Prevent “Disk Full” Errors”

1. Export and Import Windows Disk Quota Settings by Mr. Tweak - Windows Network & Admin Tweaks, on November 30th, 2005 at 12:06 pm, said:
   

   […] An earlier article on using Windows Server disk quotas received a shocking number of readers. There are a lot more admins paying attention to these making-life-easier tasks than I expected, asking about disk quotas is one of those simple questions that many sysadmin interviewees somehow missed. I’ve always figured Microsoft should require one extra exam completion per year to maintain an MCSE certification. The extra test might actually reduce the number of “paper MCSE’s”, instead of the IT field having to deal with a constantly growing number of them. Although, none of my interviewers at my current employer knew that Microsoft certification transcripts can be verified online. […]

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