Julian123
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Migrating my documents redirection folder to new server
I currently have a group policy deployed such that all users have their my documents folders redirected to \\server1\Shares. I recently installed server2 and want to move the data there. A few questions:
1. Overall, what's the best way to do it?
2. Do I simply update the group policy to point to the new server? If I do that, does the client machine automatically move the data or is that something I need to do manually?
Note that we have several thousand users, so we should plan for that.
Thanks very much for your help
1. Overall, what's the best way to do it?
2. Do I simply update the group policy to point to the new server? If I do that, does the client machine automatically move the data or is that something I need to do manually?
Note that we have several thousand users, so we should plan for that.
Thanks very much for your help
ASKER
I don't want to deploy DFS to thousands of users just to move these docs once. Is tehre any way to update the policy and manually move the files?
If you just want to move the files, you could use robocopy, or if you would like a gui, then synctoy (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=15155) This would make it a lot easier to keep the old location in sync with the new location.
When you got the files in place, changing the policy should be easy.
When you got the files in place, changing the policy should be easy.
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ASKER
I'm aware of that option. The problem is that when the client logs in, it moves the documents on its own. In a couple of tests we did, I saw multi-minute delays after the user had put in his or her password but before the desktop showed up all the documents were being copied. Across thousands of users, that will generate a significant number of support calls. I'm looking for an option that is not cause such long delays to the end-user but still allows us to move the documents.
You can create multiple GPOs. Each for a specific group of people. This will also allow you more granularity regarding the affected users as well as their profile locations. If you were to schedule the transition at the end of the day, or during lunch, the latency issue wouldn't be so intrusive. Also, if you notify the employees well in advance, you'll probably reduce your support calls as well. I've found that if your users, do some house cleaning before the transition, that goes a long way toward bandwidth reduction too. I don't know of any other option for your issue other than good planning, advanced notification and scheduling.
If there are no concerns with regards to diskspace while doing the migration, i would recommend using Distributed File System, to migrate the data between the two servers.
Byt using that, you will have the files available on both servers, and you can the change the location when the DFS paths are in sync. by doing it that way, you don't have to make sure the users are logged off when moving the data.