William Stanek - Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage, Security, & Networking Pocket Consultant

To delete a disk quota entry for a user and manage the user’s remaining files on the volume, follow these steps:

1.Open the Quota Entries dialog box as discussed in “Viewing disk quota entries” earlier in this chapter. Current quota entries for all users are listed. To refresh the listing, press F5 or choose Refresh from the View menu.

2.Select the disk quota entry you want to delete, and then press Delete, or choose Delete Quota Entry from the Quota menu. You can select multiple entries by using the Shift and Ctrl keys.

3.When prompted to confirm the action, tap or click Yes to display the Disk Quota dialog box with a list of current files owned by the selected user or users.

4.In the List Files Owned By list, display files for a user whose quota entry you’re deleting. You must now specify how the files for the user are to be handled. You can handle each file separately by selecting individual files and then choosing an appropriate option, or you can select multiple files by using the Shift and Ctrl keys. The following options are available:

■ Permanently Delete FilesSelect the files to delete, and then press Delete. When prompted to confirm the action, tap or click Yes.

■ Take Ownership Of FilesSelect the files you want to take ownership of, and then tap or click Take Ownership Of Files.

■ Move Files ToSelect the files you want to move, and then enter the path to a folder on a different volume. If you don’t know the path you want to use, tap or click Browse to display the Browse For Folder dialog box. When you find the folder, tap or click Move.

5.Tap or click Close when you have finished managing the files. If you’ve appropriately handled all user files, the disk quota entries will be deleted.

Rather than re-creating custom disk quota entries on individual volumes, you can export the settings from a source volume, and then import the settings to another volume. You must format both volumes by using NTFS. To export and then import disk quota entries, follow these steps:

1.Open the Quota Entries dialog box as discussed in “Viewing disk quota entries” earlier in this chapter. Current quota entries for all users are listed. To refresh the listing, press F5 or choose Refresh from the View menu.

2.Select Export from the Quota menu to display the Export Quota Settings dialog box. Choose the save location for the file containing the quota settings, and then enter a name for the file in the File Name text box. Tap or click Save.

NOTE If you save the settings file to a mapped drive on the target volume, you’ll have an easier time importing the settings. Quota files are usually small, so you don’t need to worry about disk space usage.

3.On the Quota menu, tap or click Close to exit the Quota Entries dialog box.

4.Press and hold or right-click Computer Management in the console tree, and then tap or click Connect To Another Computer. In the Select Computer dialog box, choose the computer containing the target volume. The target volume is the one on which you want to use the exported settings.

5.As explained previously, open the Properties dialog box for the target volume. Then tap or click Quota Entries on the Quota tab to display the Quota Entries dialog box for the target volume.

6.Tap or click Import on the Quota menu. In the Import Quota Settings dialog box, select the quota settings file you saved previously. Tap or click Open.

7.If the volume had previous quota entries, you are given the choice to replace existing entries or keep existing entries. When prompted about a conflict, tap or click Yes to replace an existing entry, or tap or click No to keep the existing entry. To apply the option to replace or keep existing entries to all entries on the volume, select the Do This For All Quota Entries check box prior to tapping or clicking Yes or No.

You can disable quotas for individual users or all users on a volume. When you disable quotas for a particular user, the user is no longer subject to the quota restrictions but disk quotas are still tracked for other users. When you disable quotas on a volume, quota tracking and management are completely removed. To disable quotas for a particular user, follow the technique outlined earlier in the chapter in “Viewing disk quota entries.” To disable quota tracking and management on a volume, follow these steps:

1.Open Computer Management. If necessary, connect to a remote computer.

2.Open the Properties dialog box for the volume on which you want to disable NTFS quotas.

3.On the Quota tab, clear the Enable Quota Management check box. Tap or click OK. When prompted to confirm, tap or click OK.

IMPORTANT Disabling quota tracking doesn’t delete existing quota entries on a volume. If you later enable quota management, the previously created quota entries will be available and will be enforced.

Windows Server 2012 R2 supports an enhanced quota management system called Resource Manager disk quotas . By using Resource Manager disk quotas, you can manage disk space usage by folder and by volume.

TIP Because you manage Resource Manager disk quotas separately from NTFS disk quotas, you can configure a single volume to use both quota systems; however, it’s recommended that you use one quota system or the other. Alternatively, if you’ve already configured NTFS disk quotas, you might want to continue by using NTFS disk quotas on a per-volume basis and supplement this quota management with Resource Manager disk quotas for important folders.

When you’re working with Windows Server 2012 R2, Resource Manager disk quotas are another tool you can use to manage disk usage. You can configure Resource Manager disk quotas on a per-volume or per-folder basis. You can set disk quotas with a specific hard limit — meaning a limit can’t be exceeded — or a soft limit, meaning a limit can be exceeded.

Generally, you should use hard limits when you want to prevent users from exceeding a specific disk-usage limitation. Use soft limits when you want to monitor usage and simply warn users who exceed or are about to exceed usage guidelines. All quotas have a quota path, which designates the base file path on the volume or folder to which the quota is applied. The quota applies to the designated volume or folder and all subfolders of the designated volume or folder. The particulars of how quotas work and how users are limited or warned are derived from a source template that defines the quota properties.

Windows Server 2012 R2 includes the quota templates listed in Table 4–6. By using the File Server Resource Manager, you can easily define additional templates that would then be available whenever you define quotas, or you can set single-use custom quota properties when defining a quota.

Quota templates or custom properties define the following:

■ LimitThe disk space usage limit

■ Quota typeHard or soft

■ Notification thresholdsThe types of notification that occur when usage reaches a specific percentage of the limit