DFS - Can this work?

[Hightower]

Let's say we have two servers, 1 & 2.

 

Server 1 has a H: drive which hosts all staff accounts and some student accounts.

Server 2 has a H: drive which hosts the rest of the student accounts.

 

Is it possible to set up DFS so that when I browse to \\DOMAIN.internal\\DFSRoot\ it will show all the folders from server 1 and server 2, in one location.

 

Is that what DFS does, or do I have the wrong idea of it? I don't want the files to be replicated from one server to the next, just a location that is a 'shortcut' if you like to all the files/folders on both servers.

 

I'll explain why I want this for better understanding. I have a GPO which redirects AppData. I can't put in the redirection entry "\\server1\AppData\%username%" because the accounts on server 2 will not work properly then. So I thought by being able to put "\\DOMAIN.internal\DFSRoot\AppData\%username%" it will find the correct server for where those files are.

 

Is this not how DFS works? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

[localzuk]

It should do exactly that, yes. You don't have to have replication enabled to do that.

[teejay]

You'd be better in the group policy for the appdate folder redirection using the advanced option to specify different locations by user group. For us, we seperate the student by year group, makes it much easier to manage rather than having all the redirected folders in one folder on the server.

So you'd have something like:

\\server1\AppData\09students

\\server1\AppData\10students

etc..

[jinnantonnixx]

DFS causes all replication partners to have identical copies of the data on their DFS shares. It's not a mix; they are identical. If a file is added, changed or deleted in one of the replication partners, this change is peculated through the system to the other partners.

 

DFS in 2008 uses block-level replication which is much more efficient that pre-2008 (which had to copy a whole file even if 1 bit changed).

 

You might be thinking of the Libraries function?

[strawberry]

yup. can do that!. \\server\namespace then add server1 and server2 as folder targets

[localzuk]

DFS causes all replication partners to have identical copies of the data on their DFS shares. It's not a mix; they are identical. If a file is added, changed or deleted in one of the replication partners, this change is peculated through the system to the other partners.

 

DFS in 2008 uses block-level replication which is much more efficient that pre-2008 (which had to copy a whole file even if 1 bit changed).

 

You might be thinking of the Libraries function?

 

No it doesn't. DFS and FRS can be used independently or together - you don't have to have replication if you don't want to.

[Hightower]

I've tried adding a namespace, and then a new folder called Staff. The staff folder has targets of \\S1\Staff and \\S2\Staff, but when I browse to DOMAIN.Internal\DFSRoot I only see the folders that are present on S1, not those that are on S2.

[teejay]

If your not using replication, then the folders have to be different names to see them both. if you are using replication then the local computer will connect to one of them and the data replicates to the other and if the connection failes it will start using the other one.

[RabbieBurns]

sorry to hijack the thread but its pretty much on topic.

 

Each of us in the IT Dept has a c:\ISO folder where I keep the latest MS volume license images. At the moment, I manually update each of our folders. This is tedious. We all run 2008R2 as our daily workstations.

 

Would I use DFS with file replication to be able to have each workstation have its own local copy of the ISOs, but they would automatically update whenever I downloaded a new ISO into my local ISO folder?

 

(never Used dfs, just stumbled upon this thread which made me think)

[eean]

sorry to hijack the thread but its pretty much on topic.

 

Each of us in the IT Dept has a c:\ISO folder where I keep the latest MS volume license images. At the moment, I manually update each of our folders. This is tedious. We all run 2008R2 as our daily workstations.

 

Would I use DFS with file replication to be able to have each workstation have its own local copy of the ISOs, but they would automatically update whenever I downloaded a new ISO into my local ISO folder?

 

(never Used dfs, just stumbled upon this thread which made me think)

 

I don't think it can work on workstations. TBH it'd be quicker to use a xcopy script or one of the many file replication tools out there.

 

You can't merge 2 files from different servers as the OP wants to do... windows wouldn't be able to cope with 2 folders potentially with the same name. If you set them up as a replica then you will have a copy of everything on each server. Windows should (depending how you set it up) spread the load accross the servers. This would make reads quicker (because it's only accessing 1 server) but writes slower - because windows is having to communcate with another server to update the replica.

[RabbieBurns]

We all run 2008R2 as our daily workstations.

[eean]

We all run 2008R2 as our daily workstations.

 

Then yes, it would work.

[RabbieBurns]

coolio.. thanks..

 

Having never used it before Im trying to find some sort of how-to guide.. but I cant seem to find a technet doc or anyththing about how to set it up..

 

anyone got any beginnsers guides to DFS?

[mrbios]

Any specific reason you're running 2008R2 on your workstations? sounds like a waste of licensing money to me. and why not just have one ISO folder and share it?

[RabbieBurns]

because they are quite powerfull machines (6 core with 16gb ram, 2tb raid 10) and we use them as our hyperv testbed cluster amongst other things.

[mrbios]

because they are quite powerfull machines (6 core with 16gb ram, 2tb raid 10) and we use them as our hyperv testbed cluster amongst other things.

 

In that case i'll let you off

[teejay]

because they are quite powerfull machines (6 core with 16gb ram, 2tb raid 10) and we use them as our hyperv testbed cluster amongst other things.

 

I'm working in the wrong country, the newest machine in our office is 4 years old.

[timzim]

because they are quite powerfull machines (6 core with 16gb ram, 2tb raid 10) and we use them as our hyperv testbed cluster amongst other things.

 

Do you have hover-chairs as well?

[mrbios]

I'm working in the wrong country, the newest machine in our office is 4 years old.

 

You need to prioritise yourselves above others

 

Every 3 years we get new office PCs and rotate ours off as teacher pcs, we always ensure we have the fastest desktop machines in the school as we have to be able to do everything that can be done by a teacher or student and more, this budget is 3 years so we're getting i7 2600s, 8gb ram, vertex 3 120gb SSDs.

[RabbieBurns]

Do you have hover-chairs as well?

 

we got rid of them 3 years ago, they're so 2008 ;p

[Frazer]

Dont mean to dig up an old thread, but!

Im currently looking at 'load balancing' the students. Having added up all our students surnames, its split 65% A-M and 35% N-Z.

 

As you can see doing A-M Surnames on 1 server and N-Z on another would not work out very well. As far as I know there isnt an inteligent way of doing this with current budgets/setups (someone please correct me!). I have decided to do the following:

All Staff on server 1, first child in each year group on server 2, second child on server 3, third on server 2, forth on server 3, etc.

This can be done quite quickly using Excel and WiseSoft's "Bulk AD Users" - great tool!

 

Using DFS im probably going to have something like:

\\domain.local\Users\Staff -> server1\Staff

\\domain.local\Users\Students1 -> server2\Students

\\domain.local\Users\Students2 -> server3\Students

 

To answer the OP: you cannot have the contents of 2 servers listed from one DFS. When you browse to the DFS root, the workstation chooses one of the 2 targets to view and sticks with it until it becomes inaccessible or the workstation is logged off/restarted.

 

Hope that helps!