Is there any way to limit the size of the files that users can leave on the file servers?

You can do this via quotas in 2k3.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=224

The asker needs to limit on a per file size limit  to be disallowed.  
i.e. usera puts file1 with size 10MB.  This is allowed, but usera can not put a file whose size is 1GB.

Using templates which were referenced in the link Howei_ly posted, you might be able to indirectly limit upload of files of above certain size by limiting what types of files can be stored in the shares. i.e. no .mov, divx, wma, etc.

Arnold,

You are correct your example is exactly what I need to do. I can use templates  to limit size folder on the user personal folder but I am not allowded to do that on the department folder.
Using a script it would be a plan B but innitally what I am looking for is something that blocks the file to be copied on the fly, instead of limit the size of the folder using a template is there a way to limit the size of the file that the user can tranfer to a folder?

i.e. usera puts file1 with size 10MB in OHR folder.  This is allowed, but usera can not put a file whose size is 1GB in OHR folder. And OHR folder can not be limited by size via template because this is not allowded in my company.

Any ideas?
thanks


   

File screening in Windows Server 2003 R2 can limit the size of the file that users can transfer?

I.E: Can I use File Screening to create a template with the following policy - Do not allow users to move files bigger that 100 Mb, and apply this template to a folder?

You do not need a script because the auditing functionality is part of the FSRM which includes reports based on file size.

I have not seen an option in the template process to limit based on a file's size.

Ref: ,"File screening in Windows Server 2003 R2 " by Rand Morimoto, Michael Noel, Alex Lewis.  You can preview this book on Google.
You can not limit files by size, you can however limit files by type.  using your earlier example, OHR as the department uses Power Point presentation which can get large.
A fixed file size limit will be an issue for them.  

Hey Arnold so what you're saying is that I can limit the size of the file by type of file.

So I can create a template selecting all the possible file extensions like... ppt, doc, mdb, jpg etc... and then select these files can not not be bigger than 100 Mb for OHR folder?

No, you will prevent the storage of those file types no matter their size. 1KB or 10Gb those files will not be allowed.

Ok, it what I have set up right know. But I what I need is to limit the size of the file that they can transfer for the department folder.

Do you know if there is any other product or application capable to that?
It would be something like exchange we users try to send emails with attachments biggers than 10 Mb, the system block the email right away because the size is bigger than 10 Mb.

No.  Settup auditing.  Check whether deleting files above a certain size is an option.   Warn individual and then using a script move the file whose size exceeds the allowed to a temporary non-share folder from which the file will be deleted after a short period.  This is in case someone put in a 1GB word document they prepared.

Hey Arnold,

Thanks a lot for your help!
It's a good idea but due to the number of file server that we have and politics in our company is not the right solution for us.
I can't believe that nobody had a similar problem before! It must be something out there to solve this situation. This is not a really weird case scenario.

My guess is that limiting the type of files actually limits the size of files as well.
The granularity provided with file type limitations avoids the I want to limit file size to X unless it is of type a.
File size limitations are too in discriminant.

Not sure what the relevancy of a number of servers is.  These are shares, so a script can run in one location map the share do its thing and go to the next one, the files can be "locked up" in one place.

I agree with you.

But my goal gere is to avoid a users unintentional (DoS) attack on the file servers on the fly. In other words before it happens.
I see your point limiting the size that a share can hold is limiting the file size that the user can leave on the file server.
But since I am not able to do that by department folder (I have this implemented by home user folder) I need to find a way to avoid users to leave huge files on the shares in order to avoid them to crush the server.
If I run a script performing what you just said this is not going to help me to protect the file servers from users moving extremely big files and overloading the file servers.