November 20th, 2007
Derek Schauland

Windows Server 2003 R2 allows administrators to apply quotas to individual shares on a file server. This can be useful if you need to: monitor the use of file shares in your environment; keep user home directories at a manageable size; or limit the amount of data that users can store in a share to conserve disk space. You may also find these features helpful for tracking resource usage and disallowed file types. (Note that you may need to install the File Server Resource Management utilities for quotas to work.)

Configuring quotas and quota templates on shared folders

When upgrading to Windows Server 2003 R2, you will need to install the File Server Resource Manager application following the steps below. (Windows may ask for the Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM to complete these steps.)

• Open Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel.
• Select Windows Components.
• Select the Management And Monitoring Tools option from the component list and click Details.
• Check the box next to File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) and click OK. When the tools installation completes, the newly added MMC console will appear under the Administrative Tools folder on the Windows Start menu.

To add a quota to a shared folder, follow these steps:

• Open the FSRM.
• In the left pane, expand Quota Management.
• Select Quotas.
• Right-click in the right pane and choose Create Quota from the context menu. This will open a dialog box containing the settings needed to create a quota for a given folder.

In the new window, you can choose to set the quota against a specific folder or turn it on for all existing folders. (For simplicity’s sake, I specify a folder in this tip.)

Enter or browse to the share path on which you wish to create a quota.

Choose how you would like to assign quota information from these two options:

• Select Derive Properties From This Quota Template (Recommended) and then choose a template in the drop-down box.
• Define Custom Quota Properties and click the Custom Properties button. (I select this method because quota templates are an easy way to keep track of quotas.)

Once you select the template, the details of the template will appear in the box at the bottom of the dialog box.

• Click Create to add the quota.

Microsoft includes a few preconfigured templates to assist in assigning quotas to folders. You can use these or create your own templates by completing the following steps:

• In the File Server Resource Manager, expand Quota Management.
• In the left pane of the window, select Quota Templates.
• Right-click the Details pane of the FSRM window and choose Create Quota Template. This will open a dialog box, allowing you to specify the settings for your template. If you want to use an existing template to create your new quota template, select the desired template from the Copy Properties From Quota Template drop-down box at the top of the dialog box. Then complete the remaining fields of the dialog box. Templates allow you to save and reuse quota settings, saving time in the future.
• Specify a name for your template, such as Folder Shares Limit. If you wish, specify a label for your template too.
• Specify one or more notification thresholds.
• Click OK to complete the creation of a Quota Template.

Note: You can use quota thresholds to send alerts or notifications to users or administrators when the specified threshold reaches its limit. Along with alerts, quota thresholds can also record event log entries containing this information. Additionally, multiple thresholds may be useful if you are watching a folder using a quota and want to send an alert at a predetermined point before the quota you are monitoring. For example, set one quota to send out an alert when a monitored folder is within 10 Mb of the threshold, then another at the threshold.