First, it is important to appreciate that disk quotas are actually a feature of the NTFS disk file system rather than a specific feature of Windows Server 2008, although Windows does provide the tools necessary to configure and manage disk quotas.
In essence, disk quotas allow Windows administrators to monitor and control the use of disk space by users. Disk quotas can be deplayed deployed in a number of different ways depending on the requirements of the administrator:
* '''Disk Usage Monitoring''' - Allows the administrator to monitor the usage of disk space on a user by user basis. No action is taken by the operating system to warn users that they are approaching a limit or prevent further disk writing when the limit is exceeded.
* '''Disk Usage Enforcement''' - Allows monitoring of disk usage, issues warnings top users when thresholds are reached and denies disk space when the user exceeds limit.
Disk quotas are configured on a per-volume basis. it It is not, therefore, possible to specify a quota that encompasses multiple volumes. Once a volume has disk quotas specified, those quotas apply to all users of the volume unless exceptions are configured for individual users. For example, a user in the video editing department would probably need more disk space than someone in the accounts department. Members of the Administrators group can never be denied access to disk space. The most an administrator will ever receive is a warning.
