Fastest way to share files between Windows Servers

[TechBoyJK]

Hi Guys,

I'm setting a Windows 2003 box to act as a file server.

I was thinking about using an OpenSource storage system, but I was advised to stay with windows since the webserver is windows and going opensource would be slower since it would have to convert the file system, etc.

Should I just setup a basic mapped drive? Or is there a better way to get good sharing performance?

 

[yinan]

Mapped drive is as good as you are going to get for a Windows box.

 

[spikespiegal]

Doesn't matter if it's a mapped drive, UNC, blah blah blah. SMB is SMB.

Stay with windows if everything is Windows clients. I've played with most of the light-weight specialized Linux file servers and found them not as snappy as Windows. If you have Win2003 might as well use it.

Otherwise, assuming you are running gig ethernet on everything performance is typically limited by who's doing most of the writing and how fast that drive is.