EWS users are given 10 gigabytes of storage that is shared between EWS Windows and Linux. If you fill up your disk space (or "quota"), you won't be able to write additional files to your drive and the system may respond oddly.  We strongly recommend moving files that are not used for this semester to the free cloud storage provided through your campus account, such as Box, Google Drive or OneDrive (sign into these services with your campus account). 

When the EWS home directory is full, below is a list of different symptoms that you may see:

Check for and resolve an over-quota issue from Windows

1. If the issue doesn't prevent you from logging into an EWS workstation, then simply log in and delete some files from your home directory (mapped as the U: drive). Content in your Recycle Bin counts towards your quota, so make sure to empty your Recycle Bin as well. When deleting content, you can press Shift+Delete to permanently delete files.
   
   If you're unable to log into an EWS workstation continue with the steps below.
   
   
2. On a personal device, follow this guide (Remote access to your EWS Windows home directory) to map your home directory, but for step 4 use the path below instead.
   The paths are split by the first letter of your NetID (e.g. If your NetID were frodo123 the path would be \\ews-unity.ad.uillinois.edu\fs2-homes\frodo123)
   Note: mapping via these paths will map your entire home directory (both Windows and Linux). Using the normal path described in the above guide will map only your Windows subdirectory.
   

   1. For NetIDs abc - \\ews-unity.ad.uillinois.edu\fs1-homes\YourNetIDhere

   2. For NetIDs defgh - \\ews-unity.ad.uillinois.edu\fs2-homes\YourNetIDhere

   3. For NetIDs ijkl - \\ews-unity.ad.uillinois.edu\fs3-homes\YourNetIDhere

   4. For NetIDs mnop - \\ews-unity.ad.uillinois.edu\fs4-homes\YourNetIDhere

   5. For NetIDs qrs - \\ews-unity.ad.uillinois.edu\fs5-homes\YourNetIDhere

   6. For NetIDs tuvwxyz - \\ews-unity.ad.uillinois.edu\fs6-homes\YourNetIDhere

3. Open Windows PowerShell
   
   
4. Using the image below as an example, input the drive letter of the mapped drive and a colon character, then press Enter to navigate to that drive
   
   
   
   
5. Copy the following command into PowerShell, then press Enter to check your quota usage
   
   
   1. "{0:N2} GB" -f ((Get-ChildItem .\ -Recurse -Force | Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum -ErrorAction Stop).Sum / 1GB)
      
      
      
      Note: your usage as displayed by the above command may not reflect your actual quota usage down to the exact MB. EWS recommends keeping ~1GB of free space to avoid any quota-related issues.
      
      
      
6. Copy the following command into PowerShell, then press Enter to see the 20 largest files in gigabytes
   
   
   1. gci -r -force | sort -descending -property length | select -first 20 fullname, @{Name="Gigabytes";Expression={[Math]::round($_.length / 1GB, 2)}}
      
      
      
      
7. Alternatively, open the mapped home directory through File Explorer, then right-click a folder under your home directory and select "Properties." This will show you the size of every file and folder that is stored within that folder -- you can use this to narrow down which folders may contain the files using most of your storage space.
   
   
8. Delete content as needed using File Explorer.
   
   Remember: content in your Recycle Bin counts towards your quota, so make sure to empty your Recycle Bin as well. When deleting content, you can press Shift+Delete to permanently delete files.
   
   When viewing your home directory content on a personal device, you can view and delete Recycle Bin content by changing File Explorer's options to show hidden and system files:
       a. Navigate to: File -> Change folder and search options -> View tab
       b. Under Hidden files and folders, select the radio button for Show hidden files, folders, and drives.
       c. Uncheck the box for Hide protected operating system files (Recommended).
       d. Each folder in your home directory may have its own hidden Recycle Bin subfolder, depending on where the files you recycled were originally located.
       e. When you're done, we recommend reverting these settings.
   
   
   
   

Check your quota from Linux

Your home directory will automatically be mounted and assigned as your home directory to any EWS Linux workstation. Log into an EWS Linux workstation and open Terminal. 

Type ews-quota and press enter. 

For a more detailed output, type ews-quota-detail and press enter 

Note: your usage as displayed by the above commands may not reflect your actual quota usage down to the exact MB. EWS recommends keeping ~1GB of free space to avoid any quota-related issues.

Note: Vscode can cause issues with your quota if you are using it to ssh to other computers. This causes Vscode to dump several GBs of configuration files into your .cache directory. If you are using Vscode to ssh instead of your terminal then you will need to keep an eye on this or it could cause a problem with your quota limit!

Resolve an over-quota issue from Linux

From a personal device, click here for instructions on accessing the Linux section. When deleting content, press Shift-Delete to permanently delete files, as content in the Trash counts towards your quota.

To find large files in your Linux drive, run the following command in the Terminal:

find ~ -size +100M -ls

This will give you a list of files that are over 100 MB. You can remove them with the rm function. 

If you need assistance locating or removing files, please submit a help request for assistance.

Finding over quota issues in your Linux . (dot) files

If you have checked your files using the method above in the Resolve an over-quota issue from Linux section but you are still over quota and having issues figuring out why the likely cause is your hidden . (dot) files and directories. To find the . (dot) files and their associated file sizes run the following command in Linux your home directory from the Terminal:

du -sh *

This will give you all the files and their respective sizes, permissions, and owners, including your . (dot) files. To check the sizes of your . (dot) directories run this command from your Terminal:

du -sh * .[^.]*|sort -h|tail

This will give you a list of your . (dot) directories and their sizes. If any of your . (dot) directories look like they could cause you to be over your quota then you can cd into whichever directory you want to investigate and run this command again:

du -sh * 

This will give you a breakdown of all the files in that directory so you can check which ones are causing your quota issues. 

To remove any files that you don't need, simply run the command:

rm <filename>

To remove entire directories and their contents if they are not needed run the command:

rm -rf <directoryname>

Please note that removing a file or directory is a permanent action and cannot be reversed!