Trying to integrate Macs in a PC environment a bit better. The main file server is a Windows box. We're thinking of putting 10.6 Server on it as a VM. Then we could make all the volumes mount points that the VM mounts, then shares out to the Macs. So Macs on the network would be connecting directly to a Mac using AFP, and they'd then have easy access to the storage array.

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Is AFP a necessity?

SMBX has performance issues. It also strips away metadata. Plus CCC has a hard time with it.

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Are you backing up to a sparse bundle? Perhaps that could mitigate some of the problem? Might be worth testing to see if CCC has an easier time with the HFS+ formatted sparse bundle versus writing files directly to the SMBX connected share.

Disappointing to read SMBX is still not up to snuff compared to Samba. Do you have any benchmarks I could reference?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2013 01:27AM by silvarios.

Do you have specs for the current file server?

Unless I am misunderstanding the license, I believe Snow Leopard Server is still tied only to Mac hardware. While technically feasible, violating software licenses is rarely a great fit for businesses.

Seems like Samba and Netatalk on a Linux box would be an ideal file server. No? Have you tested such in a VM? No reason to convert the whole server when you can test a nice stripped down Linux build in a VM.

I don't want to mess with disk images. Quite a few reasons why. I'll share if you really need to know.

As far as SMBX benchmarks, not really. With 10.6 I could connect to servers much more quickly and the transfer rate was much better.

Specs for the current file server... no. Thing a massive box that ~300 people can use. Has multiple arrays I think, including one that does backups of the main.

The other SL Server thread mentioned being able to run it as a VM. Seems like a fair number of others are able to do that. This wouldn't be to convert the whole server to OS X, just to put a OS X VM on the Windows server. A linux VM with netatalk might be an option.

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M A V I C
I don't want to mess with disk images. Quite a few reasons why. I'll share if you really need to know.

Not even a sparse bundle?

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M A V I C
The other SL Server thread mentioned being able to run it as a VM. Seems like a fair number of others are able to do that. This wouldn't be to convert the whole server to OS X, just to put a OS X VM on the Windows server. A linux VM with netatalk might be an option.

Right, however, unless Apple changed the license, you can only virtualize a Mac on a Mac. Stupid, eh?

Depending on specific need, I often suggest Linux as a multi platform file server. Samba and Netatalk are pretty powerful/flexible tools.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2013 01:09PM by silvarios.

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silvarios

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M A V I C
I don't want to mess with disk images. Quite a few reasons why. I'll share if you really need to know.

Not even a sparse bundle?

Yes, being sparse only helps in that it can expand. All of the many other issues still exist.

Quote

Right, however, unless Apple changed the license, you can only virtualize a Mac on a Mac. Stupid, eh?

Depending on specific need, I often suggest Linux as a multi platform file server. Samba and Netatalk are pretty powerful/flexible tools.

Does netatalk work with SMBX? There's no way the entire server will switch away from Windows as it does much, much more than just share files.

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Netatalk is an AFP option. Samba would be the open source option for SMB, but your Windows server currently seems to be handling that well, excepting Apple's busted implementation of course.

If you want SMB back on your Mac, have you tried SMBUp? Supposed to handle the heavy lifting of adding SMB back to your Lion or Mountain Lion Mac. You can do the same manually if you don't mind some tweaking. Probably wise to vet the app first, I've never used it, but I keep seeing mention to it in various SMB Lion/ML discussions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2013 02:36PM by silvarios.

silvarios, I don't know what the heck I was thinking. My question makes no sense at all. I saw your response and was like "well, duh" then read what I wrote... oy.

Haven't tried SMBUp, but this is also for other users where they can't maintain their own stuff. I got one using CCC, then screwed that up...

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Quote
M A V I C

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silvarios
Not even a sparse bundle?

Yes, being sparse only helps in that it can expand. All of the many other issues still exist.

Try a sparse bundle instead. It slices up the image into small bands instead of one monolithic chunk. Should help avoid small corruption wiping out the whole disk, makes backup easier, as each band can be incrementally backed up, and compressing the disk should be faster.

Here's some info from MacTech regarding sparse bundles:
"To address some of these issues, Apple changed the FileVault disk image format in Leopard. Starting with OS X 10.5, newly created FileVault home directories use the "sparse bundle" format. With this format, instead of storing the disk image contents in a single file, the contents are divided among files inside a directory. Think of the enclosing directory as a physical hard drive, and the files within (called "bands" ) correspond to sectors on a physical disk. This solves several problems. First, the corruption/failure of a single file within the sparsebundle won't render the entire disk image useless; as with a physical disk, only the data in a specific part of the virtual disk is affected. Backups can be faster since only the changed "band" files need to be backed up, instead of the entire image. Finally, recovering unused space in the image is much, much faster, as the OS can just remove the unused band files."

If you've never tried a sparse bundle versus a regular disk image or even sparse image, it might solve your problems with images. Then again, might not. ;)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2013 02:25PM by silvarios.

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M A V I C
I got one using CCC, then screwed that up...

Ha! The curse of trying to make things better. I often screw things up, until I can slowly work out al the kinks. On my best days I test properly before deploying, and the tests actually cover most scenarios for day to day use. On my worst days...

To preserve Mac file integrity, I've always used some sort of disk image when backing up to non HFS/HFS+ formatted drives. CCC can be picky about whether a destination can use a sparse bundle versus one of the more traditional images, but if you can get CCC to allow creation of the image on the destination server, the backup should happen automagically (mount, backup, I think unmount as well, adfmittedly it has been several months since I configured the last backup over network with sparse bundles).

Good luck.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2013 02:36PM by silvarios.

If you end up using SMBUp, please report back. Would love to know how it works.