Folder Redirection DFS Slowness

Question

Currently performing a project to migrate all users from mapped drive home folders to redirected folders (Documents).

Having a strange issue at the moment whereby users redirected folder Documents is really slow (locally) even browsing through folders can take several seconds just to populate the list of files.

I have mapped the drive to the same DFS namespace and the speed is fine this way, I've also tested by redirecting the folder redirection to the share name instead of the DFS namespace and this is also fine. So it would seem the combination of having Folder Redirection to DFS Namespace is causing the slowness.

DFS is a singular point no replication to a NAS as per Microsoft recommendations.

Anyone had something similar or any ideas what could be causing the problem?

Yep we have five offices all connected via Fibre MPLS to Data Center where the DFS/NAS is living... — CharlesH, Dec 22 '14 at 14:38
It sounds like it might be a DFS referral problem. Are all of your sites and subnets configured in Active Directory Sites and Services? — joeqwerty, Dec 22 '14 at 14:39
Thx for helping. Yep all configured and setup as (I believe) as they should be. It is odd that the namespace works fine accessing any other way except through folder redirection, I would have thought referral issue would have cause issues across all access methods... — CharlesH, Dec 22 '14 at 14:50
Oh. I misunderstood that then. So accessing the DFS namespace is OK for all except Folder Redirection. Understood now. — joeqwerty, Dec 22 '14 at 14:59
Yep so its all fine on mapped drives even to the same folder as the %username%\documents\ really odd. If I change the folder redirection to go direct to the sharename\%username%\documents that is also fine speed wise but has other issues, as soon as I change it back to DFSNamespace\%username%\Documents it goes slow again.... Pulling my hair out lol... — CharlesH, Dec 22 '14 at 15:07
I've had something like this happen before, and it was related to a DNS issue, where the resolution for the DFS Namespace was causing the delay. Try something like this guy: http://serverfault.com/questions/50789/long-pause-when-accessing-dfs-namespace — CIA, Nov 06 '15 at 15:48

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 02 '15 at 11:57

I have also had the similar issue in my setup and seems to due to below issue

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2610379

During low network latency, we have faced slowness, we didn't observe it clearly at first. But when we look at the logs, we have found that the problem is the latency.

Also if the slowness is observed on windows 7 machine i.e. clients, below might be of help

http://www.networksteve.com/windows/topic.php/Windows_7_Folder_Redirection_to_DFS_slow_when_browsing/?TopicId=47217&Posts=0

Applying hotfix helps us. Hope this might be of some help.

FWIW, the referenced [KB2610379](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2610379) article deals with the specific case of new users not being able to access redirected folders upon first logon to a machine...not necessarily slow access to an otherwise accessible share. — I say Reinstate Monica, Jan 04 '15 at 00:19

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 06 '15 at 05:55

I have same issues in the past, sometimes they didn't even work.

Check the troubleshooting this way. http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2009/07/15/five-ways-to-check-your-dfs-namespaces-dfs-n-configuration-with-the-dfsdiag-exe-tool.aspx

Then if this doens't work, Just start over again all from the console and make a schema in the paper of what are you doing before implementing this is really helpful.

Create a namespace then associate the shared folders (assuming you are making the domain name option). the do the test from any computer in the domain if the resource is accesible using the \domain.com\namespace\resource then do the replication by adding the other resource and accepting the options.

This way always works for me .

I hope this helps

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 04 '15 at 13:50

I'd this issue also: \\dfs\resource was slow or even not working, while \\targetserver\resource was fine.

In my case, the problem was DFS root server was W2008 R2 and the target was located on a W2003. Apparently, they use a different version of NTFS, so when not specified, w2003 assumes user have always the Traverse folders, but w2008 R2 assumes the opposite.

So adding the Traverse folders rights in the w2003 folder to the Domain users group solved it for me. Except for those folders with the inheritance removed, of course, I'd to apply there again those rights.

Folder Redirection DFS Slowness

3 Answers3