Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide

Setting Up File Sharing Services

Adding a file server role to a machine involves the following:

Configuring the machine as a file server

This process involves turning on file sharing and creating the first shared folder. Windows also creates a few of its own shares by default, which I'll discuss in more detail as the chapter progresses.

Establishing disk space limits by enabling disk quotas, if necessary

Disk quotas are a simple way to limit and control the amount of disk space your users take up with their data. Quotas monitor and limit a user's disk space on a per-partition or per-volume basis; quotas do not stretch across multiple disks. The wizard can configure Windows to apply default quota settings that you select to any new users of any NTFS filesystem. This step is not required to set up file sharing services, but you might find the feature useful. And there is another way of managing quotas—through the File Server Resource Manager, where you can enable per-folder quotas and further limiting by file-type filters.

Setting up Storage Utilization Monitoring

With Storage Utilization Monitoring, you can instruct Windows Server 2008 to keep tabs on how much disk capacity is being used on volumes and to generate reports to the administrator based on predefined thresholds. These reports can be simple alerts, or they can detail large files in order by owner, group, and so on, helping you pinpoint potential targets for archival or deletion in order to free up disk space.

Turning on the Windows ...