Controlling the size of content stored within SharePoint is one of the first areas that governance plans should address from an operational perspective.

Whilst many organizations seek to limit the amount of Sites and Site Collections that are created, there also needs to be a plan to limit the amount of content that is stored within a Site Collection once it is created. As you will see, the solution is painfully easy and out of the box yet many SharePoint deployments aren’t using this functionality

If you have ever used SharePoint you know that a typical request from business users is “Can we just have a small site for a few of us to store some documents on?” This is then followed up in a few months with “Can you please help me restore the same site that I asked for? Only now it is used by the entire company and is over 200GB in size…Also why is SharePoint getting slower?”

So our issue is simple “Can we control the amount of content that can be stored within a Site Collection so that it doesn’t grow beyond acceptable boundaries?”

The Solution – Site Collection Quotas

Fortunately SharePoint 2010 provides exactly this functionality through Quota Templates. A Quota Template allows you to specify the maximum amount of content that can be stored within a Site Collection and then inform you and Site Collection Administrators when this limit is approaching. In SharePoint 2010 we also have the ability to limit resource usage for Sandbox Solutions as well.

Before we get into this a couple of things to note:

  • All files contribute to the quota: This includes Master Pages, List Items, Documents and so forth
  • Quotas can only be applied to Site Collections: This means that all Sites within the Site Collection contribute to the quota. Hence it’s a really, really good reason to make sure that all collaboration sites exist in their own Site Collection, rather than their own Site.
  • The Recycle Bin also contributes to the quota: A great reason for Site Admins to keep on top of items in the recycle bin.
  • The last item uploaded that takes the site over quota can be any size: If you have 2MB left on your quota, and you upload a 10MB file it will still upload. It won’t stop halfway through

So let’s get configuring!

Step 1) Create a Quota Template

First step is to create a Quota Template to use. Navigate to Central Administration-> Application Management->Specify Quota Templates


From here we can either create a new Template or modify an existing template. Its worth mentioning that if you modify an existing template it will not retroactivly apply to Site Collections already created with the template, only to new templates.

So I’m going to create a new template called ‘Small Team Site’ with a max storage of 20MB for demo purposes. I am also going to specify Sandbox Solutions Code Limits as well. Once this is done our Quota is ready to go


Now if go and create a Site Collection at the bottom of the page we can specify a Quota Template to apply.


So what happens when the quota is breached? You can easily control and change Site Collection Quotas from the ‘Site Collection Quotas and Locks’ page. Navigate to Central Administration-> Application Management->Configure Quotas and Locks.


There are a number of actions available here. For each Site Collection you can specify the Site Lock Information to take; such as Not Locked, Adding content prevented, Read Only and No Access. You should specify the ‘Additional Lock Information’ as well. This will present an information message to users when the quota has been breached.

You can also change Site Quotas from this page to add or remove storage as you see fit:


But be careful about the type of lock as it can confuse users. For example if you specify a read-only block, users will be able to see the site but they will be greeted with greyed out ribbon actions since no edits can take place:


However they still can add Tags and Notes since these don’t reside as part of the Site Collection so things can get confusing quick.

So we now have a quick and easy way to govern the growth of content in our Site Collections. Honestly you really should be using Site Collection quota’s on every single Site Collection you have. You will be amazed at how quickly Site Collections can grow out of control. Site Collection quotas provide you will all the necessary tools to be in control.

Cheers!