Dfs file server cluster

Clustering only supports server based roots. Since a domain based root can be created on multiple servers, it is more highly available. A server root does not have that capability as it can only be created on a single server. With a server based root, if the server is down, then the name space is not available and users can not connect to it.

Once linked, you can access the accounting share two ways. What we can do is we can use the source and target information and build replicas DFS-R so that certain leaf objects or entire DFS trees can replicate between servers in one location or in different locations. We can achieve our goal the goal of having highly available file services a few different ways: We can use DFS and replicas DFS-R to make copies of the file structures that we deem to be extremely important.

The problem with using DFS in this manner is that if there is a great deal of change, the replication process may not be efficient enough to keep up. It is not a good idea to use DFS replication in cases where there is constant change. DFS replication works wonderfully where this is little change, i. This is not supported in server clusters. We can use server clustering and create file share resources hosted in our cluster environment. It is recommended to run all the available tests.

Once the tests have completed running, a report is generated. Check the report to ensure that the hardware configuration is suitable for clustering. The following steps describe how to create a Windows Failover Cluster.

This wizard can be used to create a Windows Failover Cluster. As discussed above, we are going to create a new failover cluster for Contoso. This name is used when administering the failover cluster. We have now configured a two-node Windows Failover cluster. We can now proceed to configure this as a highly available file server and thereafter set it up as a DFS Replication member server.

We are at a growing point where we need to put servers at 3 different locations for file server access. These will be Win R2 servers. We need to have these files available in the event one or more servers go offline.

I know DFSR will work, however it is not simultaneous replication and does not provide file locking. A cluster would give me the simultaneous replication and file locking but as I understand it, it will only work with Win8 and above as the older OS's don't offer SMB3.

So my question is, which is going to be my better option? Am I missing something with either side that would sway me one direction or the other? Originally the role was only supposed to be used for SOFS and not end user files. I've heard that offline files can cause issues with really long delays and you can't have short names with transparent failover. If I were you I would either just stick with DFSR or if you are concerned with users having the same file open you could use something meant for this task like Sharepoint where users can collaborate simultaneously on documents.