Windows Server 2012 Share for Mac OS X

Discussion in 'Windows Server' started by Leica, Mar 18, 2013.

  1. Leica

    Leica MDL Member

    Nov 15, 2012
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    #1 Leica, Mar 18, 2013
    Hi,

    I have my Windows Server 2012 up and running fine. However accessing from my Mac is a pain - slow and unreliable, especially when awaking from sleep. Just awful really.

    This is a known fact. Macs suck at SMB shares. It does not matter if the is Windows Server or Windows 7/8.

    So I want to a find a way to make an AFP share on my Windows Server. The only idea I have thought of is:-

    Make a Hyper-V VM Machine with Linux and then install Netatalk. However could I then use the same share for both SMB and AFP? Could the Linux VM point to a SMB Share (on the Windows Server Host) and then share that "share" using AFP?

    If the above won't work then I have heard that Macs are better at NFS than SMB. So I may give NFS a try. NFS is natively supported in Windows Server. But again my question is can I use the same shared drive to serve both SMB and NFS clients?

    Any other ideas for sharing with Macs?

    Thanks!
     
  2. EFA11

    EFA11 Avatar Guru

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    #2 EFA11, Mar 18, 2013
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  3. Leica

    Leica MDL Member

    Nov 15, 2012
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    #3 Leica, Mar 19, 2013 (OP)
    Thanks I will give NFS a try.

    Still the ultimate goal is AFP, as NFS doesn't support Time Machine backups, only AFP does...
     
  4. EFA11

    EFA11 Avatar Guru

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    #4 EFA11, Mar 19, 2013
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  5. mattjonesits

    mattjonesits MDL Novice

    Apr 11, 2013
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    #5 mattjonesits, Apr 11, 2013
    We got Macs working with SMB ok in the end.

    Took a lot of tweaking and googling (Google Mac SMB Tweaks) but it can be done. (You need to make various changes to the Macs)
     
  6. mattjonesits

    mattjonesits MDL Novice

    Apr 11, 2013
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    #6 mattjonesits, Apr 11, 2013
    BTW - I think you need Windows Storage Server to get AFP working,
     
  7. sebus

    sebus MDL Guru

    Jul 23, 2008
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    #7 sebus, Apr 11, 2013
    Strange, all I tried just works on Server 2008 R2
     
  8. mattjonesits

    mattjonesits MDL Novice

    Apr 11, 2013
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    #8 mattjonesits, Apr 21, 2013
    Not sure what you mean.

    We saw the following symptoms on the last two versions of Mac OSX when accessing Server 2008 R2:
    - Real slow Finder browsing. (Even opening folders).
    - Slow file transfer.
    - Slow to update the Mac view of a folder when another change is made by another client.

    We applied 4 or 5 changes to the Macs and now things fly under SMB.
    The moral of the story is that is can be done!
     
  9. sebus

    sebus MDL Guru

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    #9 sebus, Apr 21, 2013
    Great. I never noticed the problems you describe, but at the same time you could explain the "4 or 5 changes to the Macs", so somebody else could benefit...

    sebus
     
  10. Leica

    Leica MDL Member

    Nov 15, 2012
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    #10 Leica, Apr 22, 2013 (OP)
    Hard to believe, especially when everywhere I read it says SMB sucks with Macs, its a known fact.

    So I too would love to know what changes.

    Thanks.
     
  11. mattjonesits

    mattjonesits MDL Novice

    Apr 11, 2013
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    #11 mattjonesits, Apr 24, 2013
    Sorry - here you go:
    (Credits to macwindows.com post - snowleopard-filesharing.html#030911b) (Sorry I can't link direct)

    1. Try this: created a simple configuration file for SMB requests "nsmb.conf" in /etc
    content:
    [default]
    minauth=none
    streams=no
    soft=yes
    notify_off=yes
    domain=<your windows domain>
    port445=no_netbios
    [<your smb server1>]
    addr=<ip address of the "your smb server"


    2. Edit smb.conf and set:

    socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY