Splitting CIFS volume

[dorseyfoga]

Hello,

We have a CIFS volume that is sitting right around 12TB or so.  It is currently being shared out using CIFS.  What we want to do is create a new volume and move some of the older data over to that volume (On the same head) and have it be transparent to the user.  I was looking into symlinks but it does not seem to do what I'm looking for.  It appears that it only works to the volume level, but doesn't work on the directory level.  What I want is this:

\\toaster\share1\directory1 looks like \\toaster\share1\directory1

\\toaster\share2\directory2 looks like \\toaster\share1\directory2

I just want the users to think that nothing has happened but on the back end have teh data moved around.  We also want to get some of the older data on to some of the slower disks while keeping the more accessed data on some of the faster disks.

Thanks.

[shaunjurr]

Hi,

Your best option, even if it is going to mean changes for your users one time, is to implement DFS.  This way you can have any number of underlying shares that can be moved around even to other machines and just require an update to the DFS information. Such moves will be much easier in the future and you will be able to balance growth and backup windows and such with very little disturbance to your users.

You might be able to add a symlink in the CIFS filesystem itself pointing to the new directory's destination, but I am unfortunately not too versed on such matters.

I didn't have any luck using widelinks a few years back because one needed to, iirc, have the data in a unix qtree, but I might have forgotten the details.

Good luck.

[billshaffer]

I have used widelinks to do what you are proposing - I don't recall there being a unix qtree requirement, but in my case the qtrees are unix so I might not have run into that.  Can anyone comment on whether that is indeed a requirement?  You'd also need a unix client to create the symlink.

Bill

[emilianoh]

The data that you have on that volume are homedirs, or groupdirs?

Because as Far as I know there are some tools, for example if you want to migrate some homedirs from one volume to a new one, such as Robocopy, SecureCopy.

Secure Copy give the capability to mantain the ACL to the shares after the migration.

Hope this helps....