Quotas
Execute the quota command to check the usage, soft quotas, and hard limits of your home directory and the shared directories you have access to.
Block Used vs File Used
There are two types of limits/quotas for each directory, block and file.
The block used column is the amount of memory being used in that directory. The soft quota and hard limit columns directly following this column are the memory limits for the directory.
The file used column is the count of the number of files in that directory. The soft quota and hard limit columns directly following this column are the file limits for the directory.
Soft Quota vs Hard Limit
Note
These rules apply if you reach or exceed either the block or file quotas/limits.
On some systems, the soft quota and hard limit have the same value, and on others, they are different.
When the soft quota and hard limit are the same, this is the limit that you are not allowed to exceed. If you reach it, you will not be able to write to that filesystem area until you reduce the usage to below the limit.
When the soft quota and hard limit are different:
If you exceed the soft quota, there is a grace period to reduce the usage below that quota (the default grace period is 7 days, unless otherwise noted for a system).
If, after the grace period, you are still exceeding the soft quota, you will not be able to write to that filesystem area until you reduce the usage to below the soft quota.
You are not allowed to exceed the hard limit (there is no grace period). If you reach it, you won’t be able to write to that filesystem area until you reduce the usage to below the limit.
Example Output
The following is a quota output example from Delta. This example user has access to two projects (bbka and bbkw). Notice that on Delta, the soft quotas and hard limits are different.
[username@dt-login03 ~]$ quota
Quota usage for user username:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Directory Path | User | User | User | User | User | User |
| | Block | Soft | Hard | File | Soft | Hard |
| | Used | Quota | Limit | Used | Quota | Limit |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| /u/username | 3300M | 90600M | 95368M | 96806 | 490k | 500k |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quota usage for allocations user username is a member of:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Directory Path | Allocation | Allocation | Allocation | Allocation | Allocation | Allocation |
| | Block | Soft | Hard | File | Soft | Hard |
| | Used | Quota | Limit | Used | Quota | Limit |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| /projects/bbka | 1.338T | 1.953T | 2.002T | 596278 | 750000 | 3000000 |
| /projects/bbkw | 44k | 500G | 550G | 11 | 375000 | 412500 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| /scratch/bbka | 4.858T | 46.57T | 51.22T | 4996918 | 37500000 | 41250000 |
| /scratch/bbkw | 27.99M | 500G | 550G | 45 | 850000 | 935000 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[username@dt-login03 ~]$