When you can use resizing

Because quota resizing is faster than quota initialization, you should use resizing whenever possible. However, resizing only works for certain types of changes to the quotas file. (If resizing will not work, a warning message is sent.)

You can use quota resizing for the following types of changes to the quotas file:

You changed an existing quotas file entry, including adding or removing fields.
For example, you changed the size of an existing quota.
You added a quotas file entry for a quota target for which a default or default tracking quota is specified.
You deleted an entry from your quotas file for which a default or default tracking quota entry is specified.

Attention: After you have made extensive changes to the quotas file, you should perform a full reinitialization to ensure that all of the changes take effect.

Note: If you use the resize command and the quotas file contains changes that will not be reflected, Data ONTAP issues a warning.

You can determine from the quota report whether your storage system is tracking disk usage for a particular user, group, or qtree. If you see a quota in the quota report, it means that the storage system is tracking the disk space and the number of files owned by the quota target.

Example quotas file changes that can be made effective using the resize command

Some quotas file changes can be made effective using the resize command. Consider the following sample quotas file:

#Quota Target type                disk  files  thold  sdisk  sfile
#------------ ----                ----  -----  -----  -----  -----
*             user@/vol/vol2        50M   15K
*             group@/vol/vol2      750M   85K
*             tree@/vol/vol2          -     -
jdoe          user@/vol/vol2/      100M   75K
kbuck         user@/vol/vol2/      100M   75K

Suppose you make the following changes:

Increase the number of files for the default user target.
Add a new user quota for a new user that needs more than the default user quota.
Delete the kbuck user’s explicit quota entry; the kbuck user now needs only the default quota limits.

These changes result in the following quotas file:

#Quota Target type                disk  files  thold  sdisk  sfile
#------------ ----                ----  -----  -----  -----  -----
*             user@/vol/vol2        50M   25K
*             group@/vol/vol2      750M   85K
*             tree@/vol/vol2          -     -
jdoe          user@/vol/vol2/      100M   75K
bambi         user@/vol/vol2/      100M   75K

All of these changes can be made effective using the quota resize command; a full quota reinitialization is not necessary.

Example quotas file changes that cannot be made effective using the resize command

Some quotas file changes cannot be made effective using the resize command. For example, suppose your quotas file did not contain the default tracking tree quota, and you want to add a tree quota to the quotas file, resulting in this quotas file:

#Quota Target  type               disk  files  thold  sdisk  sfile
#------------  ----               ----  -----  -----  -----  -----
*              user@/vol/vol2       50M   25K
*              group@/vol/vol2     750M   85K
jdoe           user@/vol/vol2/     100M   75K
bambi          user@/vol/vol2/     100M   75K
/vol/vol2/proj1 tree               500M  100K

In this case, using the quota resize command does not cause the newly added entry to be effective, because there is no default entry for tree quotas already in effect. A full quota initialization is required.

Parent topic: About modifying quotas

Related concepts

How quota reports work