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From this link I understand that my two options are:

  1. NTFS Quotas
  2. The "Limit profile size" policy setting

I prefer option (1) because I really want to limit the overall size of everyone's profile so a single user can't fill up the C:/ drive. However, if the quota is reached, I'm concerned I'd be unable to even log in as Administrator remotely to delete files or increase the quota. I don't think I can eg: limit "c:\documents and settings" except for "c:\documents and settings\administrator"

The alternative I can think of is applying an NTFS quota to each user's profile individually when the user is created - more work but at least I have the fine-grained control. This is what I'm currently considering unless you have a better idea?

In response to comments on the answers: this is a standalone TS environment with no other servers and all users use the TS exclusively.

3 Answers3

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We have found that redirecting as many folders as possible greatly reduces the amount of data that ends up the profile. I would be reluctant to redirect appdata though, you may want to test that.

Personally, I think that a terminal server that will need to support many users needs to have a huge C:\ partition. This is especially true if not redirecting any/many folders. It's also a good idea to have the profiles removed on logoff - assuming that the profiles are roaming and the correct folders are redirected.

Also note that you can re-define where user profiles are stored, so if space is limited on your C:\ partition that may be an option.

User Profiles on Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services
https://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2009/06/02/user-profiles-on-windows-server-2008-r2-remote-desktop-services.aspx

Greg Askew
  • 39,132
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Since I asked this question we've moved off 2003 and are using User Profile Disks with 2012r2 (they were introduced with 2012):

The simpler way is user profile disks. User profile disks store user and application data on a single virtual disk that is dedicated to one user’s profile [...] User profile disks provide an easy way to store the user settings and data on a separate virtual disk that is reattached at logon, so the user data isn’t discarded when the virtual machine rolls back.

They aren't necessarily perfect for everyone but they suit our use case quite well because they don't have some of the performance issues of Roaming Profiles. You need to bear in mind that:

1

As your goal is to prevent the system volume of your sever from filling up, I'd suggest the following as an alternative to restricting profile sizes (which I'd always try to avoid if possible)

Configure roaming profiles with folder redirection. This will off load the bulky storage areas (Desktop, My Documents) to a file share on another server. With roaming profiles, you can also configure your terminal server to delete local cached copies of profiles at logoff.

Edit posted in response to question edit:

As you are using a standalone server (i.e. not in an active directory domain), then roaming profiles aren't useful to you, however you can still use folder redirection to shift the bulky directories to another volume, which will go a long way to preventing your system volume from filling up.