The Difference Between Disk Block and File Limits

A file system provides two resources to the user, blocks for data and inodes for files. Each file consumes one inode. File data is stored in data blocks, which are usually made up of 1 Kbyte blocks.

Assuming there are no directories, a user can exceed his or her inode quota by creating all empty files without using any blocks. A user can also use one inode yet exceed his or her block quota by creating one file large enough to consume all the data blocks in the user's quota.