Hi,
we have an AD and a W2K8 file server ("server1") that hosts the home directories of the users. We have a GPO in place that redirects the known folders to\\server1\homes\%USERNAME%\{Documents, Downloads, ...}. That is working perfectly. However, we are running out of storage and are about to add a new file Server ("server2"). As we want to keep the old one, we decided to add a DFSN in order to implement a transparent naming of the home paths. The idea is to have something like\\domain\dfs\home\%USERNAME%.
We also have created the DFS structure successfully (each user is mounted into\\domain\dfs\home by means of a script). This works as intended. As a first step, we wanted to change the folder redirection GPO to use\\domain\dfs\home\%USERNAME%\{Documents, ...}. However, changing the path results in the contents of the known folders being erased for some users (for our test users, it worked, though). I read several articles about DFS, folder redirection and replication being problematic - however, we do not plan any replication. We also do not move the data in the first step, we only change the path, so my questions are:
- Why are the files erased in the first place?
- What would be the correct workflow to change the redirection from a server path to a DFSN path?
- Do I have to expect any problems if I actually move the data while keeping the DFSN path, i.e. if I change the DFS target later on?
Btw., we could not find a pattern related to whether offline file synchronisation is enabled or not wrt. the users experiencing the problems and those who don't.
Thanks in advance,
Christoph