Changes in quota and file type restrictions

I was doing some reading about some solutions to control user storage, both for the students and for staff, and I found some very good information regarding that.

In previous version of Windows (As in Windows 2003 Server), the quotas and file type limitations were quite limited.

• Disk quotas are per-volume. That is, you can enable quotas only at the volume level, not the folder level.
• Disk quotas are per-user. In other words, quotas are based on who owns files, not on which folder they are stored in as long as the folders are on the same volume.
• Disk quotas are calculated using the logical size of files, not the actual physical disk space they occupy.
  You can’t configure disk quotas on multiple volumes simultaneously.
• When disk quotas are exceeded, the only notification that can be generated is having an event logged to the Event logs.

The good news is that Windows 2003 R2, and Windows Server 2008 resolve all these issues, and give a brand new way of managing quotas and file types.

• Quotas can now be set at the folder level and not just the volume level.
• These quotas apply to all users who store their files in a quota-enabled volume or folder.
• Quotas are calculated using actual physical disk space occupied by files.
• You can easily configure quotas on multiple volumes and/or folders by creating quota templates.
• You can have quotas automatically created for all subfolders in a given folder, including subfolders not yet created.
• When a quota is exceeded, you have a variety of notifications you can trigger including logging to the Event log, sending an email, execute a command or script, and generate a storage report.

The bad news, is that most of the servers that we really care to implement such a solution on are currently running on Windows 2003 Server, which is one version too old to have the File Server Resource Manager (FSRM).

This is mostly information for any of you who are interested. But since we are starting to seriously discuss the control of our resources, and the granularity required to implement file type restrictions, and user quotas, it is beneficial to know what our options are. Since upgrading all our current servers to a newer OS is a long winded process, (It never seems to end apparently, I thought we just finished upgrading to 2003! :( ), I will be trying to upgrade the servers as we go, and any server that is not acting as a domain controller at this time, will be moving over to Windows Server 2008. (maybe someday, we’ll catch up with the rest of the industry ! :)

Of course, such an upgrade will require the moving of printers, and data, and all services, most of which would not be a problem at all, as we have all of this streamlined now on our current servers, and since the upgrade will be happening in place, there would be no change to workstations, or users. This will not be happening today, or tomorrow, but is merely a notification as to the plan that we need to follow in order to accomplish our goals for resource management without having to tap into 3rd party solutions.

For any questions/comment, feel free to talk to me.