Background Info

- AD is functional level 2008 R2

- Web server is running Windows 2012 + IIS (W1 > W5)

- File Server is running Windows 2012 R2 and DFS (FS1, FS2)

Now when i setup my dfs file share, it is pointing to FS1, during this period, all my web servers (W1 > W5) works fine

However when i add in FS2 to the DFS, i start getting error 53. Mapping directly to the file share works properly, just the DFS not working properly

Has anyone experienced such an issue before?

I have many years managing and planning smaller Windows server environments, however, my non-profit has recently purchased two StoreEasy 1630 servers and we would like to set them up using best practices for networking and Windows storage technologies. The main goal is to build an infrastructure so we can provide SMB/CIFS services across our campus network to our 500+ end user workstations, taking into account redundancy, backup and room for growth. The following describes our environment and vision. Any thoughts / guidance / white papers / directions would be appreciated.

Networking

The server closets all have Cisco 1000T switching equipment. What type of networking is desired/required? Do we need switch-hardware based LACP or will the Windows 2012 nic-teaming options be sufficient across the 4 1000T ports on the Storeasy?

NAS Enclosures

There are 2 StoreEasy 1630 Windows Storage servers. One in Brooklyn and the other in Manhattan.

Hard Disk Configuration

Each of the StoreEasy servers has 14 3TB drives for a total RAW storage capacity of 42TB. By default the StoreEasy servers were configured with 2 RAID 6 arrays with 1 hot standby disk in the first bay. One RAID 6 array is made up of disks 2-8 and is presenting two logical drives to the storage server. There is a 99.99GB OS partition and a 13872.32GB NTFS D: drive.The second RAID 6 Array resides on Disks 9-14 and is partitioned as one 11177.83 NTFS drive.  

Storage Pooling

In our deployment we would like to build in room for growth by implementing storage pooling that can be later increased in size when we add additional disk enclosures to the rack. Do we want to create VHDX files on top of the logical NTFS drives? When physical disk enclosures, with disks, are added to the rack and present a logical drive to the OS, would we just create additional VHDX files on the expansion enclosures and add them to the storage pool? If we do use VHDX virtual disks, what size virtual hard disks should we make? Is there a max capacity? 64TB? Please let us know what the best approach for storage pooling will be for our environment.

Windows Sharing

We were thinking that we would create a single Share granting all users within the AD FullOrganization User group read/write permission. Then within this share we were thinking of using NTFS permissioning to create subfolders with different permissions for each departmental group and subgroup. Is this the correct approach or do you suggest a different approach?

DFS

In order to provide high availability and redundancy we would like to use DFS replication on shared folders to mirror storage01, located in our Brooklyn server closet and storage02, located in our Manhattan server closet. Presently there is a 10TB DFS replication limit in Windows 2012. Is this replicaiton limit per share, or total of all files under DFS. We have been informed that HP will provide an upgrade to 2012 R2 Storage Server when it becomes available. In the meanwhile, how should we designing our storage and replication strategy around the limits?

Backup Strategy

I read that Windows Server backup can only backup disks up to 2TB in size. We were thinking that we would like our 2 current StoreEasy servers to backup to each other (to an unreplicated portion of the disk space) nightly until we can purchase a third system for backup. What is the best approach for backup? Should we use Windows Server Backup to be capturing the data volumes?

Should we use a third party backup software?

Hi All,

          Scenario: An excel file containing some records is uploaded through FTP on the server and is required to be read and saved into database by an .Net windows application, and to generate subsequent alerts including some database insertions.

Propose Solution:

                               I'm trying to build a desktop .Net application in VS 2010 that would have all the business logic/functional requirements. I have created a file screen in File Server Resource Manager . The .exe or or appref-ms file would then will be executed through the file screen that looks for an excel file upload.

Issue:

I have installed the application on the target server. I have put the path of appref-ms file in command tab of the file screen (Which looks like C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft\FTP_Contracts.appref-ms).  When i upload the excel file, got an error that details as  'Createprocess 0x800700c1 is not a valid win 32 application'.

Please tell me if there is any thing wrong in this approach or there is any other way to achieve this. What could be the reason the above error.

I would really appreciate if somebody could reply. Thanks in advance.

Ali

Problem: Connections to fileshares(smb) on windows 2012 r2 server are suddenly not possible. This server is also a AD DS server and also GPO`s can`t be retrieved by other clients (example w2008 r2 RDS servers).
Rebooting the server will solve it. No 3rd party software on the server.
Seems no relationship with IO intensity. Events are logged outside of the normal working hours and outside of the backup window.

EventId: 30809 - SMBclient is logged on the windows 2012 r2 server.

Hello,

I am in front of a very annoying and random problem. 

While browsing DFS file shares, Windows Explorer starts jumping back through the subdirectories to the root folder. It looks like something similar: 

When i open the folder:

\\Share.local\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4

In under 10 seconds, I am automatically redirected back to:

\\Share.local\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\

Then jumps back to:

\\Share.local\Folder1\Folder2

Then it jumps back to where are located DFS namespace folders:

\\Share.local\Folder1\

This behaviour appears randomly and affects also other employees in the office. There's no specific pattern with this issue when it occurs- There are Windows 7 64b Pro and Windows 8 64b Ent machines that are connected to domain. Some use mapped network drives, some only shortcuts. Some will try to open desired folders by clicking folder by folder and also experience this issue. 

There hasn't been any changes in the client machine network connection that could affect exploring folders. This starts and ends on a random moment.

Stationary machines are connected with cable, so are laptops (wireless turned off while using the docking station)

There are no sufficient event logs either in the client machine that could give some clues.

Here are some things we've already triedwithout results:

• Installed Classic Shell to reset Windows Explorer settings- seemed to help for a while. 
• support.microsoft.com/kb/983620/en-us
• Disabled the 'Network Location Awareness' service
• Windows clean install. W7-> W8 – the problem remained the same.
• Everything looks also fine from file server side
• flushdns
• Disabled Remote Differential Compression

It pretty much looks like there’s a problem on DFS side, but I am pretty clueless where to look..

Have anybody met this problem? Hints and tips would be highly appreciated!

//Karin

Hello to all

I have problem with configure iSCSI target, so I need yours help.

I have 2 blades server (HP) with Left-hand storage, installed win server 2012 R2 on both. On storage I configure the iSCSI target, both blade server have full rights for them, read/write. On server side, I see this target and successful I can do anything.

On this servers, I want to make hyper-v, and that is why I need to target see both server, live migration and HA. But when I make virtual machine and save it on this iSCSI disk, second server does't see this!!! 

My question is: How to configure iSCSI disk or something else to both server see, MPIO, CSV or ...

thx

I am currently migrating from 2003 standard file server to 2008 R2 standard. I am using Windows file server migration toolkit 1.2 to move the shares. The first time I was attempting to move everything over I received alot of errors stating that there are file paths to long after the "validating settings" step. I am resolving those and I ran it again to get a up to date list of the file paths that exceed 260 characters. I got the list but also I got a few "System Error: 64, The specified network name is no longer available". Now I can explore to these locations and access the files/folders. I'm not sure why this is happening now and not before, but any information will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hello all,

At the moment our file server (w2k3) has a shared folder structure. Folders, subfolders and files inherit permissions from parent andEveryone has read, write, execute permissions.

There is one domain user (W7) who can't see a certain file in one of those folders even though the file inherits its permission from the parent folder. Every other file in this folder he can access.

The solution I found was to make a copy (thus the same permissions?) of the file (in the same folder) and suddenly the file was visible.However when I renamed the copied file to its original name, it disappeared again for that user!

Is there an explanation for these anomalies or have I overlooked something?

hi all , iv been working on server 2008 to solve permission problem , user gave ownership for  a folder(user account) on the server where user profiles will be stored , so that the user can't log into desktop files and folder anymore and a massage appear  (windows cannot access \\192.168.0.1\user\manager\desktop contact your network admin...)

i gave permission for the user from the server folder named (desktop) , then all files and folder appear again but cannot access  any of programs shortcut (when right click "restore previous version" ) 

nb: user have a virtual server account that cannot access(forgotten password) to manage users .

wish someone can help thatnks in advance

NTFS file sharing in windows server 2008 R2 Block only file/folder deleting..

allowing renaming and file edit

Hi, I need some help/advise so to configure a server that i rent, in a way to use storage spaces.

1.Server is a Hyper-v host

2.it has total of 2 physical drives(2TB each)

i want to set it up in a way to use storage spaces but also protect boot volume (in case the first Physical Drive fails to be able to continue work without interruption). Previously i was using windows mirroring(converted the 2 physical disks to dynamic disks and setting up mirroring).

Can i resize the first physical drive e.g 500Gb, convert that to dynamic,setup mirroring on the 500gb to second physical drive, and use the 1.5TB from the first physical drive and 1.5Tb from the second physical drive to be used for storage spaces?

Thanks,

Hi All,

is there any way how to resize virtual disk within Storage Spaces in Windows Server 2012? I have 4TB (Thin provisioned) virtual disk which contains only 400GB of data and I would like to shrink virtual disk, but resize-virtual disk in powershell gives me "not supported" error.

Hi,

We have a DFSR hub and spoke topology with 50 members across 45 sites connected with a mixture of IPSEC VPN & MPLS. 1 Hub server running Server 2012 Standard, all others are either Server 2008 R2 Standard or Enterprise.

All servers have the latest patchlevel
All servers are in one domain
Theres no problem with normal AD-Replication
No obvious errors from dcdiag or netdiag
1 Namespace
61 Replicated Folders containing a mixture of office documents, images and videos

Problem:
There are large backlogs reported by DFSR diag
Large files replicate extremely slowly or not at all (for example a 984MB file created 32 days ago has still not reached 40 out of 50 sites.)
Many DFSR Event ID 5014 warnings are logged on all members ('Error: 1726 (The remote procedure call failed.) 
The hub server's DFSR debug logs contain many entries stating 'Failed to reserve file transfer server context, no more contexts are available'. These messages seem to corrospond with the DFSR event 5014 messages.

Example debug log:

20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  2772 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion 0000003401A87920
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 RPCN  1889 [WARN] NetworkGlobals::ReserveFileTransfer Failed to reserve file transfer server context, no more contexts available. updateName:removedfilename.ods uid:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665723 gvsn:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665723 connId:{1F655F11-0101-4833-805E-680361C778FE} csId:{ACF6E46C-09CE-4E7D-85F5-10206356C231} totalContexts:128
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  3011 [WARN] InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion Failed to initialize a file transfer. connId:{1F655F11-0101-4833-805E-680361C778FE} rdc:1 uid:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665723 gsvn:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665723 completion:0 ptr:0000003401A87920 Error:[Error:9078(0x2376) InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion servertransport.cpp:2884 3696 C All server file transfer contexts are currently busy] 
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  2701 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::~InitializeFileTransferAsyncState this:0000003401A87920
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  2772 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion 0000003401A85D00
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 RPCN  1889 [WARN] NetworkGlobals::ReserveFileTransfer Failed to reserve file transfer server context, no more contexts available. updateName:removedfilename.xls uid:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1608783 gvsn:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1608783 connId:{1F655F11-0101-4833-805E-680361C778FE} csId:{ACF6E46C-09CE-4E7D-85F5-10206356C231} totalContexts:128
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  3011 [WARN] InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion Failed to initialize a file transfer. connId:{1F655F11-0101-4833-805E-680361C778FE} rdc:1 uid:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1608783 gsvn:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1608783 completion:0 ptr:0000003401A85D00 Error:[Error:9078(0x2376) InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion servertransport.cpp:2884 3696 C All server file transfer contexts are currently busy] 
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  2701 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::~InitializeFileTransferAsyncState this:0000003401A85D00
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  2772 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion 0000003401A87530
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 RPCN  1889 [WARN] NetworkGlobals::ReserveFileTransfer Failed to reserve file transfer server context, no more contexts available. updateName:removedfilename.pdf uid:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665542 gvsn:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665542 connId:{1F655F11-0101-4833-805E-680361C778FE} csId:{ACF6E46C-09CE-4E7D-85F5-10206356C231} totalContexts:128
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  3011 [WARN] InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion Failed to initialize a file transfer. connId:{1F655F11-0101-4833-805E-680361C778FE} rdc:1 uid:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665542 gsvn:{80EBA14C-E68B-438F-AC8F-22D9B32BF51D}-v1665542 completion:0 ptr:0000003401A87530 Error:[Error:9078(0x2376) InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion servertransport.cpp:2884 3696 C All server file transfer contexts are currently busy] 
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  2701 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::~InitializeFileTransferAsyncState this:0000003401A87530
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 SRTR  2772 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion 0000003401A83510
20131201 18:03:46.908 3696 RPCN  1889 [WARN] NetworkGlobals::ReserveFileTransfer Failed to reserve file transfer server context, no more contexts available. updateName:removedfilename.doc uid:{1DA51289-C37E-4A07-A625-90933A0F808D}-v1412159 gvsn:{1DA51289-C37E-4A07-A625-90933A0F808D}-v1412159 connId:{4344F679-9507-4D15-9730-DFC73EFAD456} csId:{ACF6E46C-09CE-4E7D-85F5-10206356C231} totalContexts:128
20131201 18:03:46.924 3696 SRTR  3011 [WARN] InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion Failed to initialize a file transfer. connId:{4344F679-9507-4D15-9730-DFC73EFAD456} rdc:1 uid:{1DA51289-C37E-4A07-A625-90933A0F808D}-v1412159 gsvn:{1DA51289-C37E-4A07-A625-90933A0F808D}-v1412159 completion:0 ptr:0000003401A83510 Error:[Error:9078(0x2376) InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion servertransport.cpp:2884 3696 C All server file transfer contexts are currently busy] 
20131201 18:03:46.924 3696 SRTR  2701 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::~InitializeFileTransferAsyncState this:0000003401A83510
20131201 18:03:46.924 3696 SRTR  2772 InitializeFileTransferAsyncState::ProcessIoCompletion 0000003401A864E0

I have tried the following solutions:

Installed latest NIC-drivers on each server
Installed latest DFSR binaries
No teaming at the NICs
Disabled task offloading 
Increased the size of the staging folder to 16GB
Excluded DFSRs.exe from Antivirus
Excluded 'System Volume Information' directory from Antivirus
No backups are running
Increased Bandwidth allocation
Tried RDC disabled & Enabled - no difference
Removed any FSRM screens
All members are pre-staged using the Robocopy method
reviewed http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2007/10/05/top-10-common-causes-of-slow-replication-with-dfsr.aspx
reviewed http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3bEN-US%3b958802 to get the latest DFS-Files

Any suggestions please?

Windows 2008 R2 Server with Access Based Enumeration enabled on any of its shares will still present inaccessible folders to the users. However upon double clicking on the folder the error message will change as follows:

With ABE disabled the user will receive the standard Access Denied message

With ABE enabled the user will receive "folderpath refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network......."This imples that ABE is working to an extent but just not hiding the folders.

The server is running DFS only for replication - we have no namespace. I have created a test root folder and subfolders, applied the relevant permissions so that a test user has no access to one of the test folders and the test user can still see the folder. I have replicated this test environment on 2 other servers (both 2008 R2, one of which running DFS) and ABE works as expected. This proves that the issue is definitely not permissions related. It seems that there is some odd quirk on the server that I need to have this working on.

Any Ideas. Could ABE be corrupt - is there a way to reset/repair the facility?

Anyy help would stop me from going bald!

Thanks Shayne

Hello,

I want to redirect Users folders to a Fileserver, and also prevent them from browsing the root folder share.

\\Domain\Share$\HR\UserName

According to MS, users only needs (List Folder/Read Data, Create Folders/Append Data) permissions on (HR), But without the (Read Attributes) permission, they can't access the redirected folders (Documents, Music, Pictures ...) through Libraries or their User Folder (Folders icons appear white, nameless and unclickable), even though they have full access on their parent folder (UserName), however, they can access it directly by typing the full UNC.

If I give them (Read Attributes) permission, they can browse and create folders in the root share (HR) easily.

any suggestions?


Setup:
Share/NTFS Permissions MS LINK
Share is located on a FileServer Failover Cluster, accessed through a Domain DFS name.

Server 2012 DC
Windows 7 ENT

Hello,

we have user shares that we map to drive H:. the shares are in the form \\server\user\<loginname>. The shares have full permission and the files and folders have full permission for the user. To be clear, the shared folder is \\server\user. <loginname> are several folders, one for each user.

We use a vb script to check if a user stores too much data and if yes, we set the permissions for the user to read only and delete (with icacls).

Unfortunately, it this happens, we cannot map the drive anymore on Windows 7 (on Windows XP it works fine). The error is "Permission denied". Interestingly, the user can still open the share with the unc - path.

Is there anything I can do, so that the user still has his drive mapped? Most user are not tech savvy enough to open their share with the unc - path.

Thank You,

Peter