Microsoft has never included a quota management system in Windows
NT--until now. NT Server 5.0 and NT Workstation 5.0 will be shipping with an
integrated quota management system. Because Microsoft is including this system
within the core NT operating system (OS), NT Server and NT Workstation customers
can benefit from quota management features without purchasing additional
software.
However, some industry experts say that NT 5.0's quota management system is too little, too late. Because the quota management system lacks
directory-based quotas and is based on rigid partitioning, these experts believe
it is inferior to other quota management solutions.
You need to decide for yourself about NT 5.0's quota management system. By
reading the following information about how the quota management system works
(be sure to read the sidebar "Frequently Asked Questions About Quotas,"
page 174) and by weighing the system's pros and cons, you can make an informed
decision.
The Basics of the Quota Management System
Organizations of all sizes can take advantage of NT 5.0's quota management
system. Large enterprises can use quotas to limit usage on workstation machines
with multiple users. Small departments can limit permissions to a disk and then
quota that disk for added protection against users consuming all disk space. The
quota management system is flexible because it monitors and limits disk-space
usage on a per user, per volume basis.
Per user. Ownership is the key to disk usage in NT 5.0. NT
enforces per user quotas on only those files that users own. For example, if
Bill modifies Jane's report without taking ownership of it, NT will apply that
report's disk-space usage against Jane's quota. But if Bill takes ownership of
the file, NT will reduce Jane's disk-space usage by the file's amount and
increase Bill's disk-space usage by the same value.
| Is Microsoft's introduction of quota management too little, too late? I don't think so. What's your verdict? |
NT uses two valuesquota limit and quota warning thresholdto
monitor and limit disk-space usage. The quota limit is the fixed amount of disk
space available to a user. The quota warning threshold specifies the amount of
disk space available before NT generates an alert; usage above this threshold
automatically adds warning events to NT's event logs.
Per volume. The quota management system works on NTFS
volumes only. (You cannot use quotas with FAT drives.) In addition, because
Microsoft revamped NTFS under NT 5.0, you can use the quota management system
only on NTFS 5.0 volumes.
Each NTFS volume has a separate set of quotas, even if two volumes are on
the same physical disk. Thus, you can better customize quotas to meet the needs
of groups of users. For example, you can set the default quota to 20MB for all
users on drive E and to 50MB for all users on drive F. However, having separate
volume quotas means that if you have 12 NTFS volumes that need quotas, you will
have to set and monitor the quotas on each volume separately. Fortunately, you
can easily set up and monitor quotas.
Setting Up Disk Quotas
Suppose you want to use NT 5.0 beta 1's quota management system on an NTFS
5.0 volume on drive C. To set quotas, you must have administrator privileges on
the local computer that holds the volume. If you do, here's how you set up a
quota.
Under NT's Start menu, open Explorer, right-click drive C, select
Properties, and click the Quota tab. A message will appear stating that you must
upgrade to NTFS 5.0 to enable disk quotas. At first, this message might seem
odd. Microsoft released NTFS 5.0 expressly for use in NT 5.0, so why doesn't NT
5.0 have NTFS 5.0 installed? Microsoft had a good reason to use NTFS 4.0 rather
than NTFS 5.0 as the default format for a disk partition: to ensure volume
compatibility with previous NT versions. In other words, an NTFS 5.0 volume
cannot be read by an NT 4.0 (or earlier) server. So, if you want to use a
previous NT version on your disk, do not upgrade to NTFS 5.0. However, if you
don't upgrade to NTFS 5.0, you can't use quotas on that volume. (Microsoft is
simplifying the NTFS 5.0 upgrade process, so the default for volumes in a future
beta release of NT 5.0 might be NTFS 5.0.)
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