Best Server 2012 File server solution

[phreak]

Hi there,

 

I just wanted to get other peoples thoughts on the best way to implement a file server solution that allows HA.

 

Currently we have a Dell Equallogic SAN which we will be using for storage and what I was thinking was to use Server 2012 as a means of presenting that storage to the users on the network.

The 2 ways I see that I could possibly do this is to either make 2 X virtual 2012 servers in a cluster which will then connect via iSCSI to the SAN. Then use Classic File share with continuous availability.

However all of my client pc's that will be connecting to this share are Windows 7 for the foreseeable future and from what I read if a client was performing a large file transfer when one of the nodes goes down then they get an error about the location no longer existing.

While this is not likely to happen every day (the large transfers I mean) it does occasionally happen between certain departments.

 

Or my other thought on this to have those server 2012's running with Network load balance IP between them with an appropriate record pointing to said IP that would be the new file server name that we use.

But I am not sure if this may cause conflicts with both servers being connected to the SAN and if say one user was load balanced to one server and accessed the same data that another user would be using while connected through the other server.

 

Any advice that you could offer regarding this would be appreciated.