Quota Question

[scott87z28]

I have a question about configuring quotas on our IBM N5300.  We are using ONTAP 7.3.3.  We would like to add quotas to two existing CIFS share for user home directories.  The share names are \\filer\staffaccounts and \\filer\studentaccounts.  In each share there is a subdirectory for each user.  How can we create quotas so that each user's directory has a quota of say 5GB and 1GB respectively?  We do not need a quota on the overall share name, just on each users home directory.  The second part is how can we increase the quota on an individual directory for a few of our power users?  All the users will be accessing the CIFS share from Windows computers using Active Directory.

[sriegerdss]

By using ntp software

[chriskranz · Accepted solution]

You can achieve this if you have 2 separate volumes for students / staff, and then set user quotas of 5g or 1g on each. Growing a single users quota is more tricky.

If you want advanced quota's you may want to look at a third party solution that leverages fpolicy. NTP QFS and Northern Storage Suite are 2 products we have successfully deployed for our customers in the past.

[scott87z28]

Thanks.  I'll look into these two products.

[mike_zaloudek]

Between Nothern and NTP, are there any big differences that separate these two products?

If I understand correctly, It's possible to set user quotas on a volume, but if one user needs their quota modified, it's not easy or not possible with the built-in NetApp capabilities?

We need something where a helpdesk or support tech can easily bump up the quota for a user if needed.

[billshaffer]

I do this in my environment.  I have a single share with user quotas enabled at 5G.  Our "power users" (read: executives) have individual quota definitions:

*       user@/vol/windows_home/users    5G      -

domain\user1      user@/vol/windows_home/users    20G     -

domain\user2   user@/vol/windows_home/users    20G     -

Resizing one of the exceptions just takes a quota resize.  Adding a new exception takes a quota restart.

Regards

Bill

[miguel_maldonado]

Hello,

I am facing a similar problem. I was thinking about creating two groups in AD, and assing quotas to these groups instead of assinging quotas to individual users. Then, when a user maps a share, the group membership will trigger which quota to apply to a certain user. Another option that I can think of is to set a default user quota, so that every user who connects gets this quota, and then just create one group in AD with the remaining users, so that when they map their shares, the second quota is applied. I think that if you keep all files in the same volume, you could improve your storage with deduplication.

Regards

Miguel