How to limit disk quota for users in Windows 7

Posted Date: 24-Jul-2010		Category: Microsoft Windows
Author: D.Jeya Kumar(JK)	Member Level: Diamond
Rating:	Points: 30 (Rs 25)

This article explains how to limit the disk space for the users in Windows 7 which will help to manages the disk space efficiently in a multiuser environment

How to limit disk space for users in Windows 7

Computers are used in multiuser environment in many organizations in order to minimize the cost and productivity of the company. Windows users will have more provisions on limiting many things in Windows 7.

One of the Windows 7 feature is we can allocate some disk space based on the user’s needs or same space for all user account of the system. Windows Vista and Windows 7 will allow the administrator to limit the hard disk space of NTFS partitioned hard disks for each of the system account, so that the account will not fill the entire hard disk space when a computer is used by more than one user.

NTFS file system will only support disk quotas in Windows 7 and Windows Vista

By default disk quota limits are not enabled in Windows 7. System Administrator who creates the standard user account for a system can allocate the disk space for each user.

In order to check that your system supports the disk quota open the Computer from Windows start menu and select the hard disk usually it will be your operating system drive(C drive) and right click the mouse button on the drive and select properties will show the type of partition for the selected drive (check the below screenshot)

To allocate disk space

Once the system partition is verified as NTFS then you can select Quota tab of the same properties window for the selected hard disk partition to allocate the disk quota to the users of the system(Check the below screenshot).

To select disk quota

In Quota tab click Show Quota Settings button to open the Quota Settings window. In Quota settings window in order to enable the quota management select Enable quota management to limit the disk space for users and also you can enable Enable disk space to users exceeding quota limit to deny the user if the users exceeds the quota. Once the Disk quotas is enabled then select Limit disk space to and enter the limit and modify the quota to KB or MB or GB or TB and more based on the system disk space.

Set the log for the disk quota will log the usage of the disk space by selecting Log event when a user exceeds their quota limit and Log event when a user exceeds their warning level. Warning level should be less than the Limit disk space.

Click the OK button to enable the disk quota will show a message like below

disk quota confirmation

Once all the allocations are set then you need to select the user that you need to set by clicking the Quota Entries... button

Disk quota settings

Quota Entries window will be shown for the selected drive and the list of user of the system. By default the assigned quota is applicable to the entire user and by double click on any users will open the Quota Settings window for the selected users and you can assign the limit and the warning limit for the individual users and click OK button to apply the changes to the select user.

Disk Quota users list

Now you can see the changes in the Quota entries window which will list all the users with Status like OK or Warning or Above Limit, Logon Name, Amount of space used, Quota limit, Warning level and Percent Used.

Export and Import options are also available to export the Disk Quota and again Import the Disk Quota to some other system. Delete option is to delete the quota for the assigned user otherwise you can disable the quota limit by double click on the users and select Do not limit disk usage option will allow the user to use the full disk space. By default Administrator account will have no limits; it can use the whole disk space.

Disk quota limit

Built in Administrator account will have no limits and you cannot set limits to the built in admin account. You can set only the warning limit to the built in administrator account.

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