DFS Management

Applies To: Windows Storage Server 2008

The Distributed File System (DFS) solution in Windows Storage Server 2008 provides simplified, fault-tolerant access to files and WAN–friendly replication. DFS consists of two technologies:

• DFS Namespaces

  Formerly known as DFS, DFS Namespaces allows administrators to group shared folders that are located on different servers and present them to users as a virtual tree of folders known as a namespace. A namespace provides numerous benefits, including increased availability of data, load sharing, and simplified data migration.

• DFS Replication

  The successor to File Replication Service (FRS), DFS Replication is a state-based, multimaster replication engine that supports scheduling and bandwidth throttling. DFS Replication uses a compression algorithm known as Remote Differential Compression (RDC). RDC is a protocol that can be used to efficiently update files over a limited-bandwidth network. RDC detects insertions, removals, re-arrangements of data in files, enabling DFS Replication to replicate only the deltas (changes) when files are updated.