1

We are running Windows 2022 Server with AD and DFS. We have around 3 Mac Pro 2019 towers which get kicked off the server occasionally and 1 of the Mac’s has very slow Finder preview when viewing icons within a folder on the server.

I heard maybe the Windows indexing setting on the server folders may cause the slow preview. Is this accurate? Somehow one of the Mac’s ethernet port drops down to 100Base-T.

I am trying think what could be causing all the problems but coming up empty!

4 Spice ups
2

If it’s disabled, yes, it could cause slow previews.

Check the cable, check the mac power saving settings, check for other network related issues, do other devices drop?

Much of this could be network related, but windows indexing could play it’s part too, start with ruling out a generic network issue.

3

Use a Dell Precision Workstation instead ? heehee…

1 Spice up
4

You may check Event Viewer - SMBServer logs under Application&Services - Microsoft -Windows. SMB versions may not be the same between client and server. If you connect via \FQDN\share then Kerberos may be first authentication type, and Apple’s DNS Server IP must point to Domain Controller (DNS Server). If you get faster when you connect via \IPAddress\share (meaning fallback to NTLM) , probably the issue is related to Kerberos. You can check Security Logs on the DC for verification.

Do you have DFS client on Apple w/s? Apple IP address range should be defined in AD Sites&Services so that DFS client should know if it is in the same site with DFS target server.

5

We tested here and get better results not binding the Macs to AD and just using NoMAD for login and password management. Office 365 is tied to AD but once you are logged in to the AD account, file sharing isn’t a huge problem. Create aliases for server shares to easily reconnect, and don’t work directly off the server with Adobe applications.

6

DFS has been set on the Windows 2022 server. We try connecting to server on Mac with DFS naming. Seems to work fine. I was just curious if DFS vs. IP connection is different in speed of moving files or working on Adobe files over the network.

7

YES. We are still experiencing the slow downs on the two Mac Pro’s running Sonoma v14.7.4. I turned off Windows Indexing on the file share folder on the server. That seemed to work for a few days. But the issue just happened again today. The art people have problems navigating, saving/opening files, etc.

What can we do?