Users Guide

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Scale-Out File Server best practices
Scale-Out File Share usage
Scale-Out File Server shares are intended for storage of Hyper-V virtual hard disks and SQL databases.
Using Scale-Out File Server shares for end user file shares, containing unstructured data such as home
folders, spreadsheets, or PDFs (defined by Microsoft as information worker workloads) is not
recommended. Information worker workloads require substantial metadata changes (file open, close,
rename, delete) typically from hundreds of users at once. Scale-Out File Server shares are continuously
available which requires all nodes to synchronize metadata changes, which in the case of information
worker workloads will result in a large performance overhead for these shares due to the large number of
metadata changes.
If you require higher performance over high availability on file shares hosting information workloads there
are two options:
Option 1: Create a new VM with Windows Server 2012 R2 and store it on a SOFS file share. Install the File
Server role and configure it as a File Server for general use. Size the VHDX file appropriately for the
amount of information worker data to be stored there. Create all file shares inside the VM.
Option 2: Create a new SMB file share on the SOFS, but uncheck Enable continuous availability.
Creating file shares
SMB scale-out file shares are created on CSVs. You can create any number of shares on the CSVs based
on your requirements. However, the underlying CSV size dictates the total usable disk space available for
the file shares. When creating the file share in the Failover Cluster Manager select SMB Share —
Applications.
As part of the file share configuration, you have an option to select the Encrypt data access check box.
Selecting this check box allows you to use SMB Encryption for the specified file share if you require. Using
SMB encryption has a significant performance overhead.
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