A Couple of DFS Questions

[FN-GM]

Hi,

 

I am setting up DFS for our home areas. Back in the 2003 days this was a pain, these days things seem to be much better! I have tested this out. But i have a few questions for people who have experience with this. I want to make sure i get this bang on.

 

I have already setup a namespce, had this for years. Its so if i move about file servers the path doesn't change. Anyway i want to replicate the files in this area. Do i setup the replication let it replicate over the weekend and then add it to the name space? Or shall i add it to the name space the same time as i setup replication? I have quotas on the home areas. I believe i have to set them up on both servers, so i assume the first option is the best.

 

Also what do you fellas have setup for your Staging Area Quota?

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

Bump Please

[jamesfed]

Setup replication - let it tick over (it will take quite some time and don't feel tempted to restart either target or source server until its done) and then add to namespace.

 

Everything is seamless from there on in

 

For staging area when doing the initial sync set it quite high (up to a few 100GB has worked well for me in the past) and then gradually reduce over time once its back into action (mine usually sits at 30GB).

[3s-gtech]

Yeah don't get tempted to set the staging area too small, mine is 16GB between my two 1.5TB file servers (too small still I think). You'll get errors popping up in event viewer if it's too small, and performance will suffer.

[FN-GM]

Thanks @jamesfed & @3s-gtech that is the type of answer I am looking for

 

Will just wait until a few others respond then kick it off. Its not I don't trust you, just need the confidence!

 

Cheers

[FN-GM]

Oh 1 thing, how can I see the progress of the replication please?

[strawberry]

DFSRMon V1.1.0 - Blog da Equipa de Suporte Platforms PT - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

dfsrmon should help.

[synaesthesia]

It's still been strongly advised not to use replication for home areas. Has something changed recently making that less of an issue?

I'd still quite like to use it (again, I hasten to add after initial problems) to counteract our split-site setup and the possibility of issues at either site but the aforementioned advise goes against it.

[3s-gtech]

Not seen that advice myself - what do you think would be the reasoning for it? Perhaps it's due to the number of files opened and locked for a long time if AppData is redirected, which DFS-R will moan about.

[Domino]

As for monitoring you can also run a health report from the DFS console to see backlogged files etc.

 

What version are the boxes? there's major improvements in newer versions of DFSR, but if using mixed versions you're pushed down to the lowest common DFSR version.

 

The home areas thing I would imagine due to DFSR not replicating file locks. As long as your users aren't on multiple machines at once across sites I would have thought you'd be okay?

[synaesthesia]

The advice was MS best practice IIRC. Can't see much related to it now.

[FN-GM]

As for monitoring you can also run a health report from the DFS console to see backlogged files etc.

 

What version are the boxes? there's major improvements in newer versions of DFSR, but if using mixed versions you're pushed down to the lowest common DFSR version.

 

The home areas thing I would imagine due to DFSR not replicating file locks. As long as your users aren't on multiple machines at once across sites I would have thought you'd be okay?

 

One box is Server 2012 and the other is Server 2012 R2.

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

Right, I have got replication working well (test share). Works fine. I can see 2 servers in the namespace server in the DFS management console. When I turn off the original server I replicated from, I can't get to the share, (I am using the namespace address).

 

Anyone got any ideas please?

 

Thanks

[Domino]

Is 'enable referrals for this folder target' selected on the new namespace member? Has replication finished between the two?

[FN-GM]

Is 'enable referrals for this folder target' selected on the new namespace member? Has replication finished between the two?

 

Yep the button is ticked and replication has finished.

 

Thanks

[3s-gtech]

Anyone got any ideas please?

 

Thanks

 

Is this from an authenticated client, or a local account? Reason I ask is my work PC account is a local, non-domain account, so when I access my namespace I have to authenticate with my network credentials. Being DFS, it may then ask me to authenticate again at any point while browsing the shares as it decides to swap server, until I'm auth'd on both servers. These can occasionally play up, leaving me locked out and I have to reset the authentication by logging off and back on.

 

If I log in with a network account, I don't get this behaviour. Have you tested it on a network account?