Disk quota exceeded when copying data

The problem. If you have data in a project directory, e.g. /proj/snic2017-1-999, and are copying the data to another project directory, e.g. /proj/uppstore2017-999, then you may get a "disk quota exceeded" error.

The cause. This happens when your (snic2017-1-999) project quota is almost full and you're copying the data without changing the group ownership of the files. Even though the destination folder is owned by a project with sufficient quota, the files will for a short time be owned by the original project. By copying the files, the earlier project's disk usage is increased and the quota is exceeded.

The solution. We offer three options:

Use mv instead of cp.
Give the --no-g to rsync to set the group ownership of the destination files to that of the destination directory
Use newgroup the-group-i-want to change the group ownership of the files first, then rsync -rlpt /old-location /new-location
Explanation:
-r is for recursive
-l is to preserve links
-p is to preserve permissions
-t is to preserve times