Enabling disk quotas

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Enabling disk quotas

If you are a member of the Administrators group, you can enable quotas on NTFS volumes. On volumes that already contain files, Windows calculates the disk space used by all users who have copied, saved, or taken ownership of files on the volume up to that point. The quota limit and warning level are then applied to all current users based on those calculations, and to users who begin using the volume from that point on. You can then set different quotas, or disable quotas, for individual or multiple users. You can also set quotas for specific users who have not yet copied, saved, or taken ownership of files on the volume.

For example, if \\Production\Public is shared from the root directory of an NTFS volume, you might want to set a quota limit of 50 megabytes (MB) for all users of \\Production\Public, while making sure two users who work with larger files on the server have a 100 MB limit. If both of these users already have files stored on \\Production\Public, you can select both users and set their quota limit to 100 MB. However, if one or both users do not have files stored on the server when you enable quotas, you need to select the users in the Quota Entries window and then set their quota limit to a value higher than the default for new users.

For instructions about enabling disk quotas, see Enable disk quotas. For instructions describing how to enable quotas on remote computers, see Manage disk quotas on a remote computer.