Windows 2000 Built-In Quota Utility

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Strengths

The specifics of Windows 2000 disk quota management will now be examined more closely. The built-in disk quota features of Windows 2000 represent a big improvement over Windows NT. Windows 2000 comes with the ability to set limits to disk usage that have already been preinstalled. These features are a part of the Profile Quota utility, which is built into the operating system. The administrator can set a limit to the amount of storage a user can take up on an NTFS volume. The default is set at 30,000 K, but this figure can be raised or lowered as needed. When a user exceeds that limit, Profile Quota will notify the user and the administrator and may or may not refuse to save the file, depending upon the configuration. Profile Quota improves storage management and control over earlier versions of Windows and will satisfy the needs of many users.

Limitations

Unfortunately, the Windows 2000 disk quota functions are too basic for enterprise users. For one thing, when disk quotas are enabled on a volume, all system users automatically are allotted the same amount of disk space, and it is not possible to assign quotas to specific folders or directories. Also, administrators are not able to monitor space consumption by user. Even worse, end users are not given notification as they consume their disk allotments; the only notification they will ever receive is "disk full." When users receive "disk full" notices when hard quotas are being used, they must delete files until they move below their assigned disk space usage. What is upsetting, though, is that users cannot save the files they were working on when they exceeded the quota. That work is lost. Let us just hope it was not the boss' 80-page PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow's keynote address.

These are just some of the drawbacks of this built-in quota utility. In addition, FAT drives cannot have quotas applied, nor can quotas be set on NT servers. Compression is ignored by Windows 2000 when it calculates disk space, and quota reporting functions are minimal. So, although Microsoft must be applauded for trying to respond to user requests to include disk quota and defrag tools, the utilities they installed have been found wanting and should be replaced in any enterprise.

I discussed this point recently with an analyst at Giga Information Group who validated Microsoft's efforts to license best-of-breed software tools in areas such as storage, defragmentation, and quota management from the leading vendors in these areas. The downside, however, is that the tools provided by Microsoft are bare-bones versions that typically do not meet the needs of most enterprises. The analyst's strong recommendation was for enterprises to immediately upgrade to the full-featured versions that include remote management and enterprise-class functionality. That said, Windows 2000 definitely does have greater disk quota capabilities than were possible with Windows NT, but recent user surveys have shown that the most desired functions missing in Windows NT and still missing in Windows 2000.



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Server Disk Management in a Windows Enviornment
Server Disk Management in a Windows Enviornment
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 197

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