DFS Replication

Coolhandluke

Although this is not cert related I just needed to ask some expert options on DFS on server 2012.

I work at a school and we currently run 3 file servers for pupils/staff. I am considering merging the servers from 3 down to 2 and using DFS replication between them to allow loadbalance/failover. Is this a good idea ?

Everywhere i read DFS seems to point to hub/spoke design rather than a multi-master cluster within a domain. Some designs even use examples for backing up files from a branch to a central site but i cannot find anywhere or any reason why not to simply have 2 master file servers that replicate between them.

Can anyone give any reasons why not to do this ?
Possible drawbacks ?

Thanks in advance

jso

Hmm. First thought is that rsync & cron would make doing this on linux far more straightforward than DFS. I'm not an expert in DFS but it was more than pointing and clicking to set it up.

Secondly it might not achieve what you want. Perhaps having a shadow copy set up may be better. That may prevent mistakes from being replicated.