I have a ReadyNAS 2100 that is being used for network storage (CIFS / FTP(S)) and am employing disk quotas for a couple of the accounts. I'm finding that I'm getting the below alert:
Disk space used: 257 GB (Limits: 257 GB soft, 322 GB hard)
I would like to alter the behavior of the NAS with regards to how soft limits are handled, but haven't been able to find any options for it in the menu. Does anyone happen to know where / how to alter the soft limits and soft limit behavior?
What quota limit have you set? It appears that the hard limit is about 25% above the soft limit, or conversely the soft limit is 20% below the hard limit.
I havent tested it myself but I would assume that you just need to play around with the set limit with these buffers in mind. There isn't an option to modify the behaviour on reaching the limit, yet. It sounds like a worthwhile feature, but the buffer is quite large which should allow users to respond appropriately and in good time to a warning.
There is only one limit that I can set in the NAS (as far as I can tell) and it's set for 322 GB. My problem is that I can't find a way to alter what the soft limit is. The alert that I'm getting goes on to read:
User ******** has 30 days of grace time to fall under the soft limit at which time the user will be prevented from using additional disk space
I cant think of any scenario where I would want someone to be blocked from saving files while in a soft limit, especially when the soft limit is seemingly arbitrary. If there is no way to alter how the soft limit is set (% of quota or otherwise), I suppose I could always set the quota for 360 GB as 300 is our target; it just seems a round about way of handling it.
I agree it should be open to more customisation by administrators.
The hard limit exposes users to potential data loss which would be (relatively speaking) a much bigger problem, so there has to be a buffer zone.
The time limit seems unnecessary, a warning (to the admin and the user) as the user exceeds the soft limit and gets closer to the hard limit would be more sensible I suppose.
On the other hand, not having a hard limit may expose other users to problems.
I guess the priority from Netgear's point of view is reducing the risk of data loss.
How would you like to set it up?
What would you do if a user does not comply with the warnings and reaches the hard limit?
I would like it at least noted in the console that you need to set the hard limit higher than you want the actual limit to be and what calculation would be needed to determine where the (soft) limits will kick in. Ideally, the % that is used to determine the soft limit would be customizable as well as the number of days that you can fall in said soft limit.
I'm using the NAS as a backup device for several servers and have the quotas to prevent any one server from filling the backup destination in the event the backup chain gets out of hand. I can manage the backup retention settings in my backup software and can fine tune it to a pretty specific range and only really need to prevent it from exceeding that range and / or know if its approaching the upper end of that range (my alert margins would only need to be 5-10% at most).
I think you'll need to use the work around of setting the hard limit higher. I'm sure Netgear will see your request and consider it for OS6 (OS6 doesn't have the quota feature at all) , but I suspect it will not come to 4.2.x.
