Managing Disk Space by Using Disk Quotas in Windows xp

Disk quotas allow you to track and control disk space usage in Microsoft windows xp. You can enable disk quotas strictly for the purpose of monitoring how much disk space each user is consuming, or you can take the additional step to create and enforce quota limits. You must manage disk quotas on a user-by-user basis; you cannot assign disk quotas to groups.

Disk quotas are available only on NTFS volumes and only in Windows XP Professional. You must configure disk quotas at the root of the volume (for example, on an entire partition). Disk quotas apply to the entire volume; you cannot configure disk quotas on a folder-by-folder basis. If you enable disk quotas on a volume that contains multiple shared folders, the total amount of disk space users can consume in all shared folders on the volume cannot exceed their quota limit for that volume. (You will learn more about sharing in Lesson 3, “Supporting Shared Folders.”)

Microsoft Windows calculates the amount of disk space that a user is consuming by adding up the space consumed by all the files where the user is listed as the owner. By default, the owner of a file is the user who created it. If quota limits are enforced, the amount of disk space shown as available in applications (such as Windows Explorer) will be the remaining space in the quota assigned to the user, not the total space available on the volume. When a user reaches his or her quota limit, the user must delete files to make space, ask another user to take ownership of some files, or ask an administrator to increase the quota. Also, compressed files are charged to the owner’s disk quota using the uncompressed file size. If a user is approaching the quota limit, you cannot increase the user’s available disk space simply by compressing files.

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