How to configure a \\domain\sharedFolder in windows 2008

network-sharewindows-server-2008

Background:

I've got several Windows 2008 servers setup by someone else.
They are all on one domain, lets call this mydomain
Several boxes are accessing a shared folder by going to \\mydomain\share1
I found the actual files backing the share on box1
I need to move the location of this share to a larger drive for space reasons

I'm familiar with setting up and managing shares like \\box1\share1, but where do you manage/configure shares that are domain-wide; accessed like \\mydomain\share1 ?

Best Answer

It sounds like you have a domain based DFS configured, which is managed by the DFS Management utility.

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Mac OS X machines – VERY slow access to Windows shares

My gut says you might be having an MTU issue on your VPN. Path MTU discovery is supposed to work around this, but there can be misconfigurations of networking gear that make it not work right.

I don't know what the specific PING syntax is on OS/X, but on Windows you can send a PING from the server to one of the clients with the syntax:

PING <destination> -l <length> -f

This sends a PING packet with the specified length to the destination with the "do not fragment" bit set. You should be able to move packets with a length of 1472 between the client and the server, unless there's a connection between you with a smaller MTU.

Have a look at this article from Microsoft for some background: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314825

Do you see any issues with other protocols running over the VPN, like HTTP or FTP? CIFS isn't the best performer over highly-latent links, but the times you're talking about are outside the ballpark of "normal" CIFS suckage.

N easy way to move shared directories between volumes

I have three potential answers for you. You are welcome to choose your favorite:

If software RAID on Windows XP is anything like software RAID on Server 2003, you should be able to delete drive F, convert drive E to a dynamic disk, and then add the former F drive as a mirror, all without moving any data around manually.
If the above is not possible in XP, here is the direct answer to your question: Robocopy with the /COPYALL switch will enable you to copy file structures around without altering attributes, including NTFS permissions. File shares are stored in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares, so you could backup and restore this registry key if re-creating them is not a more convenient option.
If you happen to have a file server running Server 2008 R2 with RAID storage and sufficient available disk space, another approach would be to:
1. Disk2VHD the XP box, saving the VHD file(s) to the new server.
2. Use Disk Management to mount the VHD file(s) and then re-create the share names on the new server.
3. Make the change entirely transparent to the end-users by adding a CNAME record referring the old server name to the new one and setting HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\DisableStrictNameChecking to 1.

Best Answer

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Mac OS X machines – VERY slow access to Windows shares

N easy way to move shared directories between volumes

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