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Are there performance or permission or other considerations to think about when using a mklink path to a network share versus just a straight UNC path (or mapped drive for that matter).

For example, can these three ways of accessing a network resource be considered functionally equivalent and roughly interchangeable? 

mklink /d c:\shares\warehouse \\server1\warehouse
xcopy /s c:\shares\warehouse d:\temp\warehouse_copy

.

xcopy /s \\server1\warehouse d:\temp\warehouse_copy

.

net use X: \\server1\warehouse
xcopy /s X:\ d:\temp\warehouse_copy

Server is Windows 2003, clients are Win7 Pro. Network is mostly gigabit, though there are few 100mbit laggards here and there. I used a cmd shell in the example because it's easiest to explain, in practice the resource would be accessed by a variety of other methods also (Windows Explorer, Office "open" dialogs, system backup services, etc.)

matt wilkie
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  • possibly related to the performance aspect, http://serverfault.com/questions/411110/office-2010-documents-via-windows-7-symlinks-on-network-share-very-slow-in-compa (though it's unclear from the answer if this is specific to symbolic links or a general MS-Office and network paths consideration) – matt wilkie Sep 30 '13 at 20:41
  • some posts [here, in 22-Jul-2011](https://crashplan.zendesk.com/entries/24338-Ability-to-backup-network-shares-Network-Attached-Storage-) indicate a potential issue with symbolic network links: *"...linked folders are not watched in realtime, so the software doesn't see when files are changed or added. Only scanning them (verify selection) finds the changes in these folders."*. This could be a real problem with large file collections (but perhaps mapped drives and UNC are also susceptible, so it's all a wash?) – matt wilkie Sep 30 '13 at 21:44
  • See also http://superuser.com/questions/210824/creating-a-symbolic-link-to-mapped-network-drive-in-windows – Vadzim Jul 05 '16 at 11:03

1 Answers1

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I would strongly recommend NOT using symbolic links that have a remote target. My rationale being that a symbolic link makes an entry in the NTFS Master File Table, and although not substantiated, I reckon this could cause issues when performing low-level NTFS MFT operations (such as an offline CHKDSK).

As for performance, I can't see that there would be any difference at all. Both result in SMB traffic. The symbolic link route has to go via a redirection (handled by NTFS.SYS), but the "latency" here will be many thousands times smaller than any subsequent network delays...

Simon Catlin
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    You reckon? Any actual evidence one way or another? – Mark Oct 03 '15 at 17:22
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    I've had to do this for sharing drives with a service. Net shares are (apparently) not visible/available to services, but since the symbolic link is an actual file system entry it works. – TMN Oct 20 '15 at 14:00
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    Been doing this for a couple years, in production, on multiple workstations and servers and not had a single issue. – rainabba Dec 31 '16 at 06:55