Determining Windows 2000 Storage Management Strategies

File System Improvements

Windows 2000 supports the NTFS file system and two file allocation table (FAT) file systems: FAT16 and FAT32.

FAT is for small disks and simple folder structures. FAT16 is included with Windows 2000 because it maintains an upgrade path for earlier versions of Windows-compatible products and it is compatible with most non-Microsoft operating systems. FAT32 supports volumes larger than those handled by FAT16, and was first available in Microsoft® Windows® 95. Windows 2000 supports FAT32 file systems.

NTFS

The version of NTFS used in Windows 2000 provides performance, reliability, and features that are not available with FAT file systems. The NTFS data structures allow you to take advantage of new features in Windows 2000, such as Microsoft® Active Directory™ directory service, change and configuration management, reparse points (directory junctions and volume mount points), sparse file support, object IDs, extended property attributes, change journal, and many of the new storage enhancements.

In Windows 2000, NTFS data structures have been updated to enable many new features. For existing NTFS volumes, the upgrade to the new version of NTFS occurs when you install Windows 2000. You can convert FAT16 and FAT32 volumes to this format at any time.

Formatting your Windows NT partitions with NTFS instead of FAT allows you to use recoverability and compression features that are available only with NTFS. Also, formatting your volumes with NTFS instead of FAT provides faster access speed and additional capabilities for file and folder security.

Important

The version of NTFS used in Windows 2000 cannot be natively recognized by earlier versions. In dual-boot systems, where a Windows NT 4.0 installation needs to read an NTFS volume that was created or upgraded by Windows 2000, the Windows NT 4.0 installation will require support (Service Pack 4 or later).

Quota Management

Disk quotas are a new feature with the version of NTFS used in Windows 2000. Disk quotas provide more precise control of network-based storage. You can use disk quotas to monitor and limit disk space use on a per user, per volume basis.

The first time users try to store data on a volume, they are automatically entered in the quota table and assigned a default quota value. This means that the administrator does not have to enter a quota setting for each user.

Users are charged for the files they own. For example, each user's folder on \\Marketing\Public is limited to 5 megabytes (MB) of disk space. If users copy 5 MB of files to their folder, they cannot then copy or create any more files on this or any other folder on \\Marketing\Public. They can, however, move or delete the files. Disk space is not charged to users if they modify an existing file owned by someone else. Keep in mind, however, that some applications, for example Microsoft® Office, change the owner of a document to the user who last edited the document. Quota settings are independent across volumes; that is, the quota on drive C does not affect the quota on drive D.

You can use the quota feature of the Disk Management MMC snap-in to:

Enable or disable quotas on a disk volume.
Prevent users from using more disk space when their quota limit is exceeded.
View quota information for each user of the volume.
Set the default quota warning threshold and quota limit assigned to new volume users.
Block additional disk allocations and log an event when a user exceeds a specified disk space limit. Users can read, delete, and edit files as long as they do not attempt to allocate more disk space.

You can set both threshold and hard quota limits. When you enable quotas, you can set two values:

Quota limit Specifies the maximum amount of disk space a user is allowed to use.

Quota warning threshold Specifies a value at which the administrator is alerted that a quota limit is being approached. This is in the form of an event message.

As administrator, you can specify that events be automatically logged when users exceed warning thresholds and quota limits. For example, you can set a user's disk quota limit to 50 MB, and the quota warning level to 45 MB. If the user stores more than 45 MB of files on the volume, the quota system logs a system event.

You have the option of denying disk space to users who attempt to exceed their quota limit. If you select this option, users cannot write additional data to the volume without first deleting or moving some existing files from the volume. NTFS displays an "out of disk space" error message if the user tries to allocate beyond their quota limit.

Windows 2000 includes disk quota support for the following:

Policies for wide-scale remote management of disk quotas.
Improved support for finding all files owned by a particular user.

Note

Windows 2000 Server supports disk quotas only for the volumes formatted as NTFS.

When creating your storage management strategy, consider the following advantages of using disk quotas:

Monitoring disk space use on a per user and per volume basis allows for better disk resource planning.
Limiting disk space allows you to manage your storage resources more effectively by encouraging users to regularly delete unnecessary files.
Using disk quotas can be an effective way to decrease backup media costs and restoration times.