CIFS, SMB and or AFP?

AlanS · partially protected Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 7

I plan on distributing an XSAN volume via ethernet from a fiber attached client. The volume will be mounted and redirected via ethernet to a mixed environment of Apple and PC clients. The host fiber client can be PC (Storenext) and or Apple Xserve.

There are a number of concerns I have regarding stability and management of CIFS, SMB or AFP volumes. What is the forum's experience with fiber to ethernet hosting?

Thanks in advance-

messenger82 · Xsan Master Joined: 16 Jan 2007 Posts: 113

We have been doing the same thing now for about a year to allow students access their video projects from areas outside of the editing facility (college environment). The fibre to Ethernet transition has been very stable even with twenty or so people simultaneously downloading large video files at LAN speeds. Our NAS head is a windows '03 serve (our campus is windows centric) so I can't speak for Xserve but I am guessing it's the same. I wouldn't worry to much about stability or management. our system has been very robust, 100% uptime over 14 months! For management I generally spend less than two or three hours a month managing the system and most of that is permissions management.