samba - Nov 2019 - Fwd: LARGE folder/filesystem shared to Win 2k.

Hi all. Got a strange question for you (it's for an industrial setting.)

I have a large folder (15TB) on a *buntu server that I'd like to have 
available to a Windows 2000 Server VM machine (don't ask.)

The host filesystem is ext4, but Samba shouldn't care about that.

What I'm wondering is will Windows be able to access/utilize all the 
space on that, or is it going to start erroring out at Windows' max 
partition size?

(I've looked around and I can't find where anyone's addressed the 
question, and I don't particularly want to tinker with a client's old 
bubble-gum-and-duct-tape setup to test.  We're replacing it eventually 
but for now, we just kinda need to get it working.)


Thanks!

On Sat, Nov 9, 2019 at 9:13 AM Duffy W. via samba <samba at
lists.samba.org> wrote:
>
>
> Hi all. Got a strange question for you (it's for an industrial
setting.)
>
> I have a large folder (15TB) on a *buntu server that I'd like to have
> available to a Windows 2000 Server VM machine (don't ask.)
>
> The host filesystem is ext4, but Samba shouldn't care about that.
>
> What I'm wondering is will Windows be able to access/utilize all the
> space on that, or is it going to start erroring out at Windows' max
> partition size?
>
> (I've looked around and I can't find where anyone's addressed
the
> question, and I don't particularly want to tinker with a client's
old
> bubble-gum-and-duct-tape setup to test.  We're replacing it eventually
> but for now, we just kinda need to get it working.)
I'd worry more about the file system confusion for files that have
mixed case, where "filename.t" is distinct from
"FileName.txt"

In this situation, Windows does not see the filesystem. It sees
network supported access to a filesystem about which it knows nothing
else. Now, it may get unhappy if the directories have many thousands
of files in them at the top of the same directory, which I *have* seen
cause performance issues. (Especially with Subversion with a set of
old source control issues.)

On Sat, Nov 09, 2019 at 08:55:49AM -0500, Duffy W. via samba
wrote:
> 
> Hi all. Got a strange question for you (it's for an industrial
setting.)
> 
> I have a large folder (15TB) on a *buntu server that I'd like to have
> available to a Windows 2000 Server VM machine (don't ask.)
> 
> The host filesystem is ext4, but Samba shouldn't care about that.
> 
> What I'm wondering is will Windows be able to access/utilize all the
space
> on that, or is it going to start erroring out at Windows' max partition
> size?
> 
> (I've looked around and I can't find where anyone's addressed
the question,
> and I don't particularly want to tinker with a client's old
> bubble-gum-and-duct-tape setup to test.  We're replacing it eventually
but
> for now, we just kinda need to get it working.)
Windows NTFS doesn't have a 15Tb partition limit, so I doubt
that it will have a problem there.

Having said that Windows2000 is SMB1-only, so you'll
have to depend on Samba SMB1 implementation to cope
with everything.

Should be OK I think.

On Sat, 2019-11-09 at 08:55 -0500, Duffy W. via samba wrote:
Hi all. Got a strange question for you (it's for an industrial setting.)

I have a large folder (15TB) on a *buntu server that I'd like to have
available to a Windows 2000 Server VM machine (don't ask.)

The host filesystem is ext4, but Samba shouldn't care about that.

What I'm wondering is will Windows be able to access/utilize all the
space on that, or is it going to start erroring out at Windows' max
partition size?

(I've looked around and I can't find where anyone's addressed the
question, and I don't particularly want to tinker with a client's old
bubble-gum-and-duct-tape setup to test.  We're replacing it eventually
but for now, we just kinda need to get it working.)


Official docs:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2581408/windows-support-for-hard-disks-that-are-larger-than-2-tb

Cheers
Jon