Sharing the ServerFolders folder

Freddan101

I would like to have one mount pojnt for all DrivePool shares. Would it be ok to share the ServerFolder folder that resides in the pool disk (Z: in my case) and use that as a mount point on the clients?

Shane

The WHS wizard will not allow you to do this; it can however still be done by manually creating the share on the server (remote desktop, explorer, Z:, right-click ServerFolders, Properties, Sharing, Share or Advanced Sharing).

Disclaimer: I'm neither recommending nor recommending against this, I'm just stating how it can be done. If it's just read-only access you're wanting, I don't foresee any problems, but if this "super share" will be writable then you're going to need to be careful not to accidentally break WHS in some way (minor or major).

Freddan101

Exactly, I would like to share it "outside" Drivepool in the OS and the share would be writable. 

What kinds of problem could I run into? Could I danger folder duplication or something else?

Shane

* accidentally deleting or renaming WHS shares (if any) that are under your super share. In theory it shouldn't let you do this without at least a warning, but there's always a chance of blindly hitting "ok" on a warning prompt if you're in a rush. Been there, done that.

* possibility of files/folders acquiring NTFS permissions that prevent normal users of the child shares accessing them. If this does happen, you can use the WHS dashboard to "change and then change back" permissions (and if that doesn't work, you can do it manually).

* software you've pointed at the super share turns out to be buggy and trashes your 'work project' shared folder instead of saving to your 'meh whatever' shared folder.

* folder duplication seems to be rather resilient (translation: I haven't broken it yet )

Freddan101

Ok, sounds good to me. As long as I'm aware of that a user / application error could accidently delete the shares I should be fine. Maybe I could tighten the NTFS permissions on the top folders for users and Guest and leave full permissions for Administrator and System.

I.e. folder duplication works regardless of writing data to the share ServerFolders or shares under it?

Shane

Yes, DrivePool's folder duplication operates at the file system level, not the network share level, so whether you're writing a file to \\server\documents or \\server\serverfolders\documents is irrelevant as far as DrivePool's folder duplication is concerned, so long as both map to the same folder at the file system level.

Freddan101

Great, thanks for clearing that up. I will then go ahead with my "super share".