Disk Quota & How to Manage Disk Space Disk Quota & How to Manage Disk Space
Quota is the amount of space you have to store files, whether you create or access them from Linux or Windows. The amount of storage space for files is based on the available disk space on the CSS file servers and on the type of computer account you hold.
Each computer account has both a hard and a soft quota. The soft quota is the point at which you are warned that you are approaching your hard quota. The hard quota is the absolute maximum amount of disk space the system grants your account. Do not exceed your hard quota; bad things happen if you do: the system will not let you do anything in your account that requires using additional disk space; you cannot create new files; and any files that you try to edit may become corrupted. The hard quota takes effect as soon as you exceed it; there is no grace period.
Your soft quota is less than your hard quota. Since exceeding your hard quota can result in drastic consequences (see the paragraph above), do pay attention to this warning. If you exceed your soft quota for more than seven days, it automatically becomes your hard quota.
Disk quotas as of 22 December 2008 are:
| Account Type | Quota |
| Engineering students, student organizations | 3.5 gigabytes |
| Engineering faculty & staff | 7 gigabytes |
Depending on space availability, individual quotas may be adjusted during the year. Come to the main CSS office, 1256 SC, to request more disk space.
Faculty, staff, and students who need more disk space than your quota allows can purchase extra disk storage at a cost of $2.00/gigabyte/month.
To find your disk quota from a Windows machine, open a view of your H: drive (home directory), right click on any folder, and select Properties. The dialogue box at left below shows a folder using 2.2 MB of space. The dialogue box shown below at right, shows home directory space of 12 GB used in blue, and available space in magenta.
From a shell prompt, type quota -s, to get a list like this:
Or right click on a directory listing or a folder and select Properties. You will get a display like this one, showing a use of 4.7GB in this directory:
~/windowsdata/Temporary Internet Files
These are temporary files and can safely be deleted. This is the
only directory in the windowsdata directory that it is safe to remove.
~/windowsdata
This directory contains configuration files for your Windows XP environment.
Do not delete files except as noted above. If you are running Vista, remove this folder after you are content that you have all your Thunderbird, Firefox, etc., settings in the Vista environment.
Contact a CSS consultant in 1253 SC, 319-335-5055, if you need assistance.
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