Problems with DFS

[Maximus]

HI,

I've been playing around with DFS with a little success but I could do with some input if pos.

I'd like to set up the following file stucture using DFS over two servers with replication.

Public (Shared Folder, not namespace,
need to be able to add more sub folders to this one)

Software (Sub Folder)
RM Maths (Sub Folder)
RM Snapshot (Sub Folder)

Does anyone know of any good how to's for DFS? I've tried the one from MS but didn't find it that clear to follow.

Thanks
Maximus.

[imiddleton25]

I would say dont do it having been bitten buy this one
we had DFS setup for all the school data but it is not realy designed for replication in the way i thought it should be. The problems are that a student logs on and creates a word document (or any other file) say in IT suite thay log of 5 mins later they log on again in classroom or their laptop and the document is not there. Because the dfs is struggling under the strain with the large amount of data being created. We spent 3 days with Microsoft on a remote session to our 2 servers trying to fix the failed replication issue which in fairness they did, but left us with the hard part merging the data. Their best suggestion was to open both folders (one on each server) look at time stamp then delete oldest one then manually copy over to other side of dfs.
Not bloddy likley estemated time scale 3 weeks. I suggested using robocopy to merge the files (never heard of it in Bombay) Man said we dont support third party applications (fine buts its a Microsoft tool). Anyway we ran it took 3 hours first run a few permission errors fixed ran again 40 mins all sorted. within a week could see it struggling again so dismantled dfs. Last summer installed a clustered blade centre now thats how to replicate data its been excellent. would have done if not for a consultant saying " i wouldnt do that".
Should have gone with gut feeeling that will teach me.

[Maximus]

Thanks for the Info.
We are only a small Primary school so the amount of user data is minimal, its more for redunacy than anything else.

Regards
Maximus.

PS. Unfortunately we couldn't afford the blade centre i was looking at

[srochford]

If the data is essentially read-only then there's no problem with using DFS replication.

Not sure whether imiddleton was using NTFRS or DFSR (latter only comes with 2003 R2) - if the former then it won't cope; the latter might but I wouldn't recommend it for rapidly changing data :-)

Are you running 2003 R2? If so, use the DFS management tool and just use the wizard. Create a namespace for public including your 2 servers (it will save time later even if you don't want it now) and a shared folder. Then set up a replica group and add the members. That's about it! this will give you \\<domain>\public available. You can then put other folders under this and they will be available as \\<domain>\public\folder1, \\<domain>\public\folder2 etc

If you've never done anything like this before then set up a pair of virtual servers (one as a domain controller) and "play" with them - this way you can do things without worrying about possible consequences :-)

[Richie_OLSJ]

Alternatively you can do what I'm planning over the summer:
1. create a DFS share (servers are Win2K3 R2) on two servers
2. create full replication
3. set one of the servers as the preferred server (there is a patch for Win2k3 and XP required)

This should mean that a user will automatically be directed to the same server UNLESS that server is unavailable

[boomam]

Alternatively you can do what I'm planning over the summer:
1. create a DFS share (servers are Win2K3 R2) on two servers
2. create full replication
3. set one of the servers as the preferred server (there is a patch for Win2k3 and XP required)

This should mean that a user will automatically be directed to the same server UNLESS that server is unavailable

So, in theory, you could have everything (profiles, homes, ect; ) replicated on two servers for fail over with this method?
Is it tested?

[srochford]

You can do this (and I'm pretty sure it is supported by MS) but you need to think about the amount of traffic - how much data will have to be written to the replica server? Could this trash your network and cause more problems than it solves?

[boomam]

How do i set one of the servers as prefered?