I hope someone can update me further on this topic, issue and assist and hopefully lead to a resolution.
I have for a period of the last 6 months have had major issues with file server performance and mapped drives hanging.
The environment consisted of a Server 2008 SP2 (x86) cluster and presented with SAN storage. Due to the continued issues and escalation with Microsoft and support partners the recommendations were as follows:
1. Up to date patch management
2. Hotfixes for SMB, SRV, MRXSMB and other hotfixes
3. Performance issues due to x86 platform and recommendations to move to Server 2008 R2 / Server 2012
Over the last 6 months I have completed the following
1. Patch management
2. Hotfixes
3. Migrated Storage to new SAN
4. New Server Hardware
5. New Server 2012 cluster
6. Dual CPU and 32GB of memory
7. Networking upgrade to 10GB
Etc. etc. etc.... in essence an entire over hall of the service...
However we are still experiencing issues with performance and mapped drives hanging throughout the day.
I found the issue never affect me (Domain Admin)even at times where it affected all staff(10,000)
Adding a user to Domain admins for testing resolved the issue, but this is simply a process of elimination.
I strongly feel the issue is related to ABE and performance and tested the following scenario:
re-shared the root share as a hidden share and disabled ABE which I then mapped to a few users. this method worked great and performance greatly increased. The listing of folders and contents was instant....
The root level of the share has a 1000 folders and ABE is enabled so users don't need to browse through all of these, hence why I feel this is needed. there are no options to limit ABE to root level and I couldn't find any related resource from Microsoft which advise on this.
I did come across the following link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2732618 which talks about CPU performance and further down a registry fix that allows the restrict the depth of folder levels ABE is applied to. however this document only applies to most Microsoft OS's except Server 2012.
1.Open Registry Editor. To do this, click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press Enter.
2.Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\
3.On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD (32 bit) Value.
4.Type ABELevel, and then press Enter.
5.On the Edit menu, click Modify.
6.In the Value data box, type a number according to the level that ABE is enabled on the shared folder, and then click OK.
7.Exit Registry Editor.
Note The ABELevel value specifies the maximum level of the folders on which the ABE feature is enabled. For example if you enable ABE on \\Server\share, you must set the ABELevel value to 1. If you enable ABE on \\Server\share\share, you must set the ABELevel value to 2. If the ABELevel value is not set or has value of 0, then this hotfix is not enabled.
The value of the above mentioned key is set as follows:
Value = 0 : ABE is enabled for all levels (default behaviour without key as well)
Value = 1 : ABE enabled for depth of 1 (\server\share)
Value = 2: ABE enabled for depth of 2 (\server\share\folder)
And so on for multiple levels.
The share is 3TB in size and has approx.1000root level folders, subsequent folders below that can have many folders and millions and millions of files.
Can I apply this registry change on a Server 2012....? or is there any other way of using ABE but in a more controlled way....?
Yusuf