Re: DFS - can I copy data between locations physically to reduce r

Another point is you can limit the bandwidth used for replication. So you
could just set it up and limit is and let it take its time.

"boe" wrote:

> Thanks!
>
> "Dave Warren" <dave-> wrote in message
> news:...
> > In message <#> "boe"
> > <> was claimed to have wrote:
> >
> >>I have an office overseas. I have about 200 GB of data over there that
> >>I
> >>want on our server over here in the US. Using DFS and starting from
> >>scratch it could take a very very very long time to replicate and clog up
> >>my
> >>bandwidth at both offices. Could I send a hard drive of all the data
> >>from
> >>the overseas office to the US and then create the DFS after the data is
> >>copied on to our US server? Will it still want to replicate the data
> >>since
> >>the creation/modified dates will be different?
> >
> > Research "prestaging"
> >
> > The short answer is that yes, you can. If you're using 2008 on both
> > sides, I'd suggest just copying the data and letting DFS-R worry about
> > permissions and attributes, DFS-R is *very* efficient at these sorts of
> > things, I did this with over a million files and around 3TB of data,
> > only a couple GB went across the wire during the sync-up process.
> >
> > If you're using 2003 R2 on either or both sides, research how to
> > prestage if you're using robocopy then something like the following will
> > do the trick:
> >
> > /e /sec /w:3 /r:2 /purge /xd DfsrPrivate
> >
> > It's not perfect, you'll still see a reasonable chunk of data flow back
> > and forth during the sync-up process, but it's better then all 200GB.
> >
> > IIRC the other big thing that you need to do in 2003 before using the
> > above is to turn off the "inherit from parent" option on both sides and
> > manually set the root's permissions, otherwise robocopy's writes aren't
> > quite right.
> >
> > Regardless of how close your initial prestaging is, DFS-R does it's best
> > to only transfer the data required, as long as the file content matches,
> > DFS-R will update the meta data on it's own.
> >
> > The only other thought that comes to mind is to make your staging
> > directories as large as possible, on 2008 I'd go as large as 64GB if you
> > have the free space, this increases efficiency significantly during the
> > initial replication, once both sides agree that they're in sync then
> > drop this back to a sane value.
>
>

Thanks - I did not know that. Do you have any links on how that is done?

"Kyle BLake" <> wrote in message
news:8B99D54F-F860-4DF0-A6DE-...
> Another point is you can limit the bandwidth used for replication. So you
> could just set it up and limit is and let it take its time.
>
> "boe" wrote:
>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> "Dave Warren" <dave-> wrote in message
>> news:...
>> > In message <#> "boe"
>> > <> was claimed to have wrote:
>> >
>> >>I have an office overseas. I have about 200 GB of data over there
>> >>that
>> >>I
>> >>want on our server over here in the US. Using DFS and starting from
>> >>scratch it could take a very very very long time to replicate and clog
>> >>up
>> >>my
>> >>bandwidth at both offices. Could I send a hard drive of all the data
>> >>from
>> >>the overseas office to the US and then create the DFS after the data is
>> >>copied on to our US server? Will it still want to replicate the data
>> >>since
>> >>the creation/modified dates will be different?
>> >
>> > Research "prestaging"
>> >
>> > The short answer is that yes, you can. If you're using 2008 on both
>> > sides, I'd suggest just copying the data and letting DFS-R worry about
>> > permissions and attributes, DFS-R is *very* efficient at these sorts of
>> > things, I did this with over a million files and around 3TB of data,
>> > only a couple GB went across the wire during the sync-up process.
>> >
>> > If you're using 2003 R2 on either or both sides, research how to
>> > prestage if you're using robocopy then something like the following
>> > will
>> > do the trick:
>> >
>> > /e /sec /w:3 /r:2 /purge /xd DfsrPrivate
>> >
>> > It's not perfect, you'll still see a reasonable chunk of data flow back
>> > and forth during the sync-up process, but it's better then all 200GB.
>> >
>> > IIRC the other big thing that you need to do in 2003 before using the
>> > above is to turn off the "inherit from parent" option on both sides and
>> > manually set the root's permissions, otherwise robocopy's writes aren't
>> > quite right.
>> >
>> > Regardless of how close your initial prestaging is, DFS-R does it's
>> > best
>> > to only transfer the data required, as long as the file content
>> > matches,
>> > DFS-R will update the meta data on it's own.
>> >
>> > The only other thought that comes to mind is to make your staging
>> > directories as large as possible, on 2008 I'd go as large as 64GB if
>> > you
>> > have the free space, this increases efficiency significantly during the
>> > initial replication, once both sides agree that they're in sync then
>> > drop this back to a sane value.
>>
>>