Regarding quotas, what is the difference between hard-limits and soft-limits

Question

CloudLinux LVE Manager allows for modifying quotas and setting a hard-limit & a soft-limit. What is the difference between these?

Answer

• Soft-limits:
  • These limits must be lower than the hard-limit. These are intended to be exceeded only for a short period of time. This way the user can continue with a functional account but be aware that they need to reduce the usage.

• Hard-limits:
  • Once this limit is reached, the system will prevent any additional write operations to the disk, thus preventing the creation of additional Inodes. At this point, the only solution is to remove files or increase the quota.

For instructions on how to set the quota limits, you may follow this article.