topic Re: Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share in ONTAP Discussions

Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share

timmwestedt — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:15:59 GMT

Hello,

how could I share two seperate volumes (on the same filer) in a single CIFS share? Now I could make one share for each volume or qtree, only.

For example:

\\filerA\shareA\volume1 -> /vol/volume1

\\filerA\shareA\volume2 -> /vol/volume2

I don't want to use VFM or DFS.

Thank you very much!!!

Many greets

Timm

Re: Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share

radek_kubka — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 11:18:09 GMT

Hi Timm and welcome to the forums!

My question is - why would you want to create a single share across two volumes? Isn't creating one, larger volume & sharing it out good enough?

According to my best knowledge you have to use Microsoft DFS to have a single UNC path spanning multiple NetApp volumes, which can participate in DFS as leaf objects.

Regards,
Radek

Re: Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share

timmwestedt — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:27:54 GMT

Hi Radek,

thanks for your reply. It's right, I could use bigger volume, but actually this volume is realy big. Its an archive snaplock volume with 4TB and over 100.000.000 files. Our archive and backup application has problems with that size now... ;-(

Is there an other way to implement a single CIFS share with one or more volumes or qtrees? 'Symbolic links', 'widelinks' or something else?

Thanks everybody!

Timm

Re: Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share

radek_kubka — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:26:43 GMT

Its an archive snaplock volume with 4TB and over 100.000.000 files. Our archive and backup application has problems with that size now... ;-(

If this is the case, I really doubt splitting data across more NetApp volumes & presenting this over single share will improve anything - the app in question will still see the same amount of data & the same files in a single directory tree.

Does the app allow using multiple shares? My obvious thought is this would help, as each share will contain less stuff, hence it may be easier for that app to cope.

Regards,
Radek

Re: Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share

timmwestedt — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:36:38 GMT

Right, but without pervasive developmental changes on this complex application, basicly the archive app (its also a document management software) could not use multiple shares.

Its not possible to setup a "softlink" or something else?

Regards

Timm

Re: Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share

adamfox — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:37:54 GMT

You can use a widelinks, but that's essentially using DFS which you said you didn't want to do, but maybe it'll work for your situation anyway.

How it works is that in VolumeA you will create a symbolic link..anywhere you like but it can't be higher than the root of the volume, of course. Then you will set up a widelink to redirect anyone who uses that link to the other separate share. It will look to your application like it's one share, but it isn't. Just realize that under the covers, when a user or app hits that symlink, the NetApp will send a DFS redirect back to the client and thus make it mount up that other share.

If that's acceptable in your environment, then it should do the trick.

Re: Multiple volumes or qtrees in a single CIFS share

timmwestedt — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 07:12:28 GMT

Hi Adam,

I have test the symlinks for a couple of days and it looks good. Our Application is working well with the DFS redirects 😉 The most important for us was, that there is no need to install an Microsoft DFS environment (DFS Service)...yet... 😉

Thanks again for your explanations!