How to Set Disk Quota Limits in Windows
If you’re sharing computer with multiple users who are always filling up the disk space on shared computer in Windows OS, there is a way for admins to set disk quota limits per user so that no user will be able to fill up the disk.
Disk quotas were introduced in Windows 2000, and are applied to specific users and limit the amount of disk space that user can use on a particular volume.
By default, disk quotas are disabled in Windows OS. You can enable disk quotas on any volume that has been assigned a drive letter.
To enable quotas on a volume, follow these steps:
1. In Windows Explorer, right-click a drive letter and open the Properties of that drive.
2. Click the Quota tab, and then click Show Quota Settings button.
3. Select the Enable Quota Management check box to enable quotas for the disk.
4. To enable hard quotas that can't be exceeded, select the Deny Disk Space To Users Exceeding Quota Limit check box.
5. Click the Limit disk space to radio button and enter a value for the max space a user can use. In the example below, I set the space limit to 20GB and the warning level to 8GB.
6. If you want to track when users exceed the limit, check the log event boxes.
7. Click the Apply and OK buttons to activate the changes.
You’ll get a warning dialog telling you that it may take a few minutes for Windows to scan the drive so that it can update disk usage statistics.
8. Click OK button and you should see the traffic light turn green once the quota limits have been activated.
If you want to limit other drives, you will need to do the same steps above for each drive.
You can set quota limits on a per user basis, by clicking on the Quota Entries button. This is really useful if you have kids or other people using your computer and you want to restrict their hard drive usage, but not your own. You’ll see an entry for each user on the system and you can edit the limits by user.
Disk quotas were introduced in Windows 2000, and are applied to specific users and limit the amount of disk space that user can use on a particular volume.
By default, disk quotas are disabled in Windows OS. You can enable disk quotas on any volume that has been assigned a drive letter.
To enable quotas on a volume, follow these steps:
1. In Windows Explorer, right-click a drive letter and open the Properties of that drive.
2. Click the Quota tab, and then click Show Quota Settings button.
3. Select the Enable Quota Management check box to enable quotas for the disk.
4. To enable hard quotas that can't be exceeded, select the Deny Disk Space To Users Exceeding Quota Limit check box.
5. Click the Limit disk space to radio button and enter a value for the max space a user can use. In the example below, I set the space limit to 20GB and the warning level to 8GB.
6. If you want to track when users exceed the limit, check the log event boxes.
7. Click the Apply and OK buttons to activate the changes.
You’ll get a warning dialog telling you that it may take a few minutes for Windows to scan the drive so that it can update disk usage statistics.
8. Click OK button and you should see the traffic light turn green once the quota limits have been activated.
If you want to limit other drives, you will need to do the same steps above for each drive.
You can set quota limits on a per user basis, by clicking on the Quota Entries button. This is really useful if you have kids or other people using your computer and you want to restrict their hard drive usage, but not your own. You’ll see an entry for each user on the system and you can edit the limits by user.