Applying Disk Quota for Domain Users , Windows 2003

About Disk Quotas

Earlier in Windows NT Administrators were unable to apply Disk Quotas to users as this feature was not available, but with the introduction of Windows 2000 their comes the induction of Disk Quota Management through Group Policy easing the life of System Administrators.The Only Problem left was this has not much features that Admins can use with Scripting,Reporting and Remote Usage. Windows 2003 has all the features like reporting,managing and remote usage of Disk Quota.

Disk Quota can only be Implemented with System Running with NTFS partitions. FAT/FAT32 are not supported.Disk quota are configured on Volume basis so one need to configure Separate Volumes.

This was some how introduction to Disk Quota, now let start how to configure this on Windows 2003 Server.

Setting Up Group Policy

The most practical means of configuring disk quotas on a large scale would be through a domain-level group policy. This will configure the settings automatically on any of the volumes you wish to have disk quotas enabled, saving you the need to have to configure each volume independently.

Open Group Policy Management Console(Enter gpedit.msc at Run), Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Disk Quotas. On the right hand pane you will see a list of policies that can be applied. Double click the “Default Quota Limit and Warning Level Properties” setting.

Figure 1. The Default Quota Limit and Warning Level Properties Dialog

Default Value was 100 MB, I changed this to 10 MB.You can set what ever value suits your organization needs.You can apply further setting you need to aply on users.

You may also want to manually force a group policy update using the gpupdate utility. Simply go to Start > Run and type "gpupdate /force" followed by the return key. This will refresh both the computer and user policies

Configuring Disk Quota and Disk Quota Enteries

Using the Computer Management console, you can configure disk quotas for a local or remote volume from a central location. To open Computer Management, you have three choices; either right click My Computer and select Manage, type compmgmt.msc in the Run bar or select Computer Management from the Administrative Tools folder.

Select which computer you wish to manage from the root node. To select a remote machine right click the “Computer Management” node, select “Connect to another computer…” and choose the computer you wish to manage. Now, navigate to Storage > Disk Management and select the volume you want to configure from the right hand pane and open the properties dialog. Click the Quota tab and enable the options you want to be enforced.

Figure 2. Disk Quota Dialog Box

Click Quota Entries and Furhter Add Domain Users to apply Disk Quota Entries.Navigate to “Quota” and Click “New Quota Entry”.

Figure 3: Adding a new User Quota Entry

Enter Disk Space you need to apply for a particular user

Figure 4: Adding a new quota entry

Press “OK” and enter.Disk Quota applied to a Particular User.

Figure 5: Viewing a list of Quota Entries

This article has given you an overview of Disk Quotas in Windows 2003. We’ve looked at why they would be used and how to configure them.