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Sal SoriceFlag for United States of America

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Mac users - slow move/copy, file corruption accessing Windows 2016 File Server

I have a client running Windows Server 2016 Standard. We're mostly PCs but have been slowly adding some Macs (currently have 5). Two of the Mac users are Graphic Designers that often work with large files (10 - 15GB+) and Folders (20 - 40 GB). They work wired (not wireless). They also always transfer the files they need to work on from the Server to their Mac, then move/copy them back when done.

They often have problems with slow file move/copy operations and also experience occasional data corruption and files that 'seem' to copy OK but then magically 'disappear' from the Server folder.

I've read that there are problems between Macs and Windows Server when communicating via the SMB protocol. One solution that seems to be mentioned often is Files Connect by Acronis.

Another option we are considering is getting a dedicated Mac to act as a 'File Server', so the Art people can stay completely in a Mac 'world'.

Looking for anyone who has experienced this first hand and how they solved it. I'm not a Mac expert at all, so any advice is greatly appreciated!!
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Eoin OSullivan
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Another Mac or NFS/Unix file server will behave better than SMB and if the work is critical and the files are valuable it is well worth the investment and lack of heartache compared to working with a Windows File Server and the flaky apple implementation of SMB.

An Apple Mac mini with an external HD shared
or
a good NAS by Synology or Qnap or Buffalo with RAID Hard Drives  will be far more reliable and perform better.
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Eoin,

Thanks for the comments. I have several Synology NAS boxes onsite at the client, but I thought they had similar issues. Have a DS1815 set up as an iSCSI Device (which is the only one that could possibly be used to host the Mac files), so I'd think it would encounter the same problems, no?

Any familiarity with Files Direct by Acronis?
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Eoin OSullivan
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Eoin, Thanks for your help!! I've opted to try using our Synology DS1815+ NAS to host the files so the Macs can access via AFP. Hopefully that will solve the problem.