Needing to replace DFSR with a solution that has file locks

albaker · Thu Sep 10, 2020 4:26 pm

We have 2 locations separated by 90 miles with a 300 Mbps Metro-E connection. Latency is < 20 ms. We recently had a firm upgrade our two main file servers with DFS, and we're having problems with users opening the same file (AutoCAD) and one user losing his work. We understand now that DFSR doesn't lock remote files but only the one on the local server.

In searching for a solution, I ran across a post that reference StarWind - sorry, but I don't recall where that was but did create myself a note. Is StarWind with some type of replication a viable solution? Will StarWind do the replication and locking? Sorry, but I don't have that much experience with StarWind, but I'm hoping this will work.

Thanks

Sat Sep 12, 2020 4:35 am

Welcome to StarWind Forum!
I would still like to recommend active-active replication here for better failover. May I ask you how many physical connections you have between locations and how many physical switches you have in each server room? Learn more about StarWind System Requirements https://www.starwindsoftware.com/system-requirements.
20 ms can be too much for StarWind. I am talking about the heartbeat failover strategy which requires 5 ms latency. Node Majority should work in this setup though. Read more about this failover strategy here (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/help/N ... ategy.html). For Node Majority, you need some witness server though. Please wait for the new build to arrive, there we should introduce file share witness which work great here.

So, what you can do is apply for the trial license and trying the solution in your environment with the trial version (DO NOT BRING ANY PRODUCTION TO STARWIND DISKS WHILE RUNNING THE TRIAL, PLEASE).