We have deployed a new san and are in the process of migrating our file servers to it. we currently have two file servers both serving about 4tb of data each using externally connected das. We would like to consolidate on one server and make it a vm in our esx environment with HA. We are not looking at a clustering solution until next year. My other thought was using two servers but use DFS for a single namespace making shares accessible through two hosts (my preferred method). What Im not sure of though, is whether two domain based dfs servers can point to a single data repository. Secondly with roughly 8tb of data is there a best practice as far as how much data should be configured per volume? I want to get away from having 10-15+ volumes like we have now as they are a pain, always requiring expanding the volumes and constantly monitoring disk space. By the same token though, creating a single 8+tb volume does not seem smart from a disaster recovery standpoint as well disk defragging, av scanning, etc. Would really like to hear from others especially those dealing with similiar large volumes.

I meant to post this under file services and storage. But regardless, anyone with any input to share?

Hello Scott, Based on the research, a DFS namespace can holds one or more DFS links, and each DFS links can connect to more than 2 domain based servers (folder target). You can specify multiple folder targets to increase the redundancy of the DFS link. If one of the folder targets is not available, the client will attempt access one of the other available targets. In other words, 2 DFS server s can point to the a single data repository. How DFS works http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782417.aspx For the concern about how much data should be configured per volume, I suggest that you may refer to the best practive s for partitioning a hard disk as followed. Best practices for partitioning a hard disk http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/tulloch_partition.mspx For the general consideration on the performance tuning of file server on Windows Server 2003,you may refer to the part Performance Tuning for File Servers in the following Performance Tuning Guidelines. Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2003 http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/8/0/2800a518-7ac6-4aac-bd85-74d2c52e1ec6/tuning.doc Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/Perf-tun-srv.docx Hope it helps. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.