DFS and/or Robocopy
Here's a brief description of my network:
4 physical sites, each with a T1 connection to the main headquarters. Local DC's running Win2K3 in each site and wanting to use DFS to replicate about 200GBs worth of data in real time. I know Microsoft recommends DFS for use with less than 64GB worth of data, but once the data is on each DC, I don't think the volume of changes will be extreme. Is there a way to pre-stage the DFS share with Robocopy or will this just screw up my DFS replication?
Any alternatives will be appreciated. I would like to use the DFS namespace to centralize my shares and limit mapped drive changes, but am not sure that DFS (or NTFRS) can handle the amount of data initially...
4 physical sites, each with a T1 connection to the main headquarters. Local DC's running Win2K3 in each site and wanting to use DFS to replicate about 200GBs worth of data in real time. I know Microsoft recommends DFS for use with less than 64GB worth of data, but once the data is on each DC, I don't think the volume of changes will be extreme. Is there a way to pre-stage the DFS share with Robocopy or will this just screw up my DFS replication?
Any alternatives will be appreciated. I would like to use the DFS namespace to centralize my shares and limit mapped drive changes, but am not sure that DFS (or NTFRS) can handle the amount of data initially...
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
NJComputerNetworks
by the way, I would upgrade your DFS servers to Windows 2003 R2. DFS replication is greatly been enhanced in Windows 2003 R2.
ASKER
That's what I had thought...
Question.... is Microsoft now supporting more than 64GB worth of replicated data with R2? I thought I saw that on the link you gave, but wanted to be sure I was reading it correctly.
So, to clarify, if I use Robocopy to copy all of my data from server A to Server B (or copy all data to a usb drive and then copy back to server B) and then enable DFS replication, will it throw all the files I just copied into the PreExisting folder or will it just double-check that the files are identical and keep on chugging?
Right now, I only have 2 servers to replicate, so I don't have a 3rd to pre-stage as has been suggested to me elsewhere. Additionally, I have 2 more DC's that I would like to enable DFS replication on for this same data at a later time, but with R2 am I going to be killing my WAN?
Question.... is Microsoft now supporting more than 64GB worth of replicated data with R2? I thought I saw that on the link you gave, but wanted to be sure I was reading it correctly.
So, to clarify, if I use Robocopy to copy all of my data from server A to Server B (or copy all data to a usb drive and then copy back to server B) and then enable DFS replication, will it throw all the files I just copied into the PreExisting folder or will it just double-check that the files are identical and keep on chugging?
Right now, I only have 2 servers to replicate, so I don't have a 3rd to pre-stage as has been suggested to me elsewhere. Additionally, I have 2 more DC's that I would like to enable DFS replication on for this same data at a later time, but with R2 am I going to be killing my WAN?