Network and Storage Protocols

ONTAP 9 CIFS/SMB Windows File Path/Name Character Limit

dunno1958
16,419 Views

What's the file path/name character limit on ONTAP 9 for Windows 8.x clients please?

 

Any reference docs available?

 

Cheers

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

dunno1958
16,355 Views

Thanks for the reply Matt. I've been doing more digging and found a couple of article:

 

https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1030813/loc/en_US

 

 '...........the NetApp software can be negatively impacted if the file path name exceeds 255 characters on a Windows host operating system.'

 

And https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1000976/loc/en_US

 

'On the storage system, the maximum length of a file name is 255 characters for NFS clients and CIFS clients that support PC's long file name format.'

 

 

 

View solution in original post

2 REPLIES 2

mbeattie
16,389 Views

Hi,

 

I don't believe there is an ONTAP limitation, rather see the "Maximimum path length limitation" of Microsoft client operating systems here

 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx

 

I'd recommend structuring your data on CIFS shares using a broad directory structure rather than a deep\nested directory sturcutre to avoid this issue on older microsoft operating systems.

 

/Matt

If this post resolved your issue, help others by selecting ACCEPT AS SOLUTION or adding a KUDO.

dunno1958
16,356 Views

Thanks for the reply Matt. I've been doing more digging and found a couple of article:

 

https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1030813/loc/en_US

 

 '...........the NetApp software can be negatively impacted if the file path name exceeds 255 characters on a Windows host operating system.'

 

And https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1000976/loc/en_US

 

'On the storage system, the maximum length of a file name is 255 characters for NFS clients and CIFS clients that support PC's long file name format.'

 

 

 

Public