Checking quota and usage

The FASRC quota command provides file system quota and usage information for all FASRC cluster storage except Cold Storage (Tape).

Basic Usage

quota <PATH>

Examples

[jharvard@holylogin08 ~]$ quota $HOME
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rcstorenfs:/ifs/rc_homes/home01 95G 23G 73G 24% /n/home01

[jharvard@holylogin08 ~]$ quota /n/acc_lab
Filesystem Size                     Used Avail Use% Mounted on
holy-nfsisilon:/ifs/rc_labs/acc_lab 8.0T 5.8T 2.3T 73% /net/holy-nfsisilon/ifs/rc_labs/acc_lab

Lab directories, netscratch, and active lab storage

For lab directories (/n/holylabs), netscratch (/n/netscratch), and active lab storage (/n/<lab_name> and other paths), usage/quota is shown for the lab group that owns the directory:

[jharvard@holylogin08 ~]$ quota /n/netscratch/mcfee_lab
Disk quotas for grp mcfee_lab (gid 40227):
Last updated 2026-03-06 13:40:03
Filesystem     used   quota   files quota
/n/netscratch  1.5Mi  50.0Ti  455   100000000

If the file system mount point is specified (e.g., /n/holylabs, /n/netscratch), your user account’s usage across the entire filesystem, in addition to your primary group’s usage/quota is shown:

[jharvard@holylogin08 ~]$ quota /n/netscratch
Disk quotas for user jharvard (uid 21442):
Filesystem space quota limit grace files quota limit grace
netscratch-ib01.rc.fas.harvard.edu:/netscratch/C
11056M 0K 0K 210k 0 0

Disk quotas for grp jharvard_lab (gid 10483):
Last updated 2026-03-06 13:40:03
Filesystem used quota files quota
/n/netscratch 10.8Gi 45.5Ti 209615 100000000

Specifying group with -g or user with -u (holylabs and netscratch only)

To display quota/usage for a specific lab group, the -g option can be specified:

[jharvard@holylogin08 ~]$ quota -g mcfee_lab /n/holylabs
Disk quotas for grp mcfee_lab (gid 40227):
Last updated 2026-03-06 13:50:03
Filesystem   used  quota   files     quota
/n/holylabs  8.5Gi 3.6Ti   118318 10000000

To display aggregate usage for a specific user on netscrach or holylabs :

[jharvard@holylogin08 ~]$ quota -u fdr /n/netscratch
Disk quotas for user fdr:
Last updated 2026-03-06 00:23:18
Filesystem space files
netscratch-data01.rc.fas.harvard.edu:/netscratch/C   139M    96957

Limitations

1. For lab directories and netscratch, your user usage is not displayed if the FASRC `quota` command is executed from a login node
2. For lab directories and netscratch, group usage information is updated approximately every ~10 minutes, and user usage is updated daily
3. For active lab storage, you must be a member of the specified lab group to list quota/usage for that group

Advanced Usage

Display usage for all members of a group with –group-user-usage (holylabs and netscratch only)

The quota --group-user-usage <group> option can be used to display a table of aggregate netscratch or holylabs usage for each member of the specified lab group.

Users who are members of other lab groups will have their aggregate usage for those other groups included in the total.

$ quota --group-user-usage alumn_lab /n/netscratch
VAST usage for group alumn_lab (gid 1776) on /n/netscratch:
Last updated 2026-03-05 15:12:08
Filesystem: netscratch-data01.rc.fas.harvard.edu:/netscratch/C
User                 space files
------------------- ------ -----
obama                 240G 11088
fdr                 16741M   764
gwbush                430M   298
jadams              67456K    66
jfk                     0K     0
jqadams                 0K     1
rbhayes               283G  511k
troosevelt            414M    19

-----------------------
*space* column value includes usage for /n/netscratch
under any other group the user is a member of

Verbose output (-v)

The -v option displays the underlying command used to obtain quota info (if applicable):

[jharvard@holybioinf ~]$ quota -v /n/holylfs06
command: lfs quota -h -u jharvard /n/holylfs06
==============================================
Disk quotas for usr jharvard (uid 21442):
Filesystem used quota limit grace files quota limit grace
/n/holylfs06 0k 0k 0k - 0 0 0 -
uid 21442 is using default block quota setting
uid 21442 is using default file quota setting

command: lfs quota -h -g jharvard_lab /n/holylfs06
==================================================
Disk quotas for grp jharvard_lab (gid 10483):
Filesystem used quota limit grace files quota limit grace
/n/holylfs06 0k 20T 20T - 0 14784921 14784921 -

Quota command on Active Lab Storage (Tier 0) versus Coldfront/Starfish

The quota command displays the amount of data owned by a lab group, regardless of which lab’s directory the files are located in. Coldfront and Starfish display the amount of data and number of files found in a lab’s directory, regardless of group ownership.

There may be discrepancies between the amounts reported by the quota command and Coldfront/Starfish, particularly for files owned by users who are members of more than one lab group and who originally created files outside of a lab’s directory.

For questions, suggestions, or feature requests, please contact us.