Use the Volume Shadow Copy service to provide file recoverability and data fault tolerance to minimize the number of times you have to restore from backup.
Use Remote Storage to migrate data from a disk volume to remote storage media based on when a file was last accessed or when a managed disk reaches a predetermined free disk space threshold.
Do not configure Remote Storage to manage volumes that contain FRS replicas because doing so can cause unnecessary data migration.
Try to provide disk fault tolerance for your operating system and data drives, preferably using hardware-based RAID sets.
Completely format RAID 5 volumes to avoid loss of disk performance later when data is being first copied to the volumes.
Use NTFS whenever possible on all volumes.
Convert basic disks to dynamic disks.
Always define share permissions for every share regardless of the volume format type.
Replace the Everyone group with the Domain Users group when shares are created on domain servers and anonymous or guest access is not required, and set the share permissions accordingly.
Do not enable client-side caching on the file share if roaming user profiles are used on a network because this may cause corruption to the end user's profile.
Use File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) quotas as part of the Windows 2003 R2 update, instead of NTFS quotas, for better quota management capabilities.
Monitor disk performance using utilities such as System Monitor and fsutil.
Audit file and folder security.
Require that only certified hardware drivers be installed on the system.
Install and use DFS that comes with the Windows 2003 R2 update to get better DFS operation and replication functionality.
Use domain-based DFS roots whenever possible.
Use DFS to provide a unified namespace to file data.
Use NTFS volumes for DFS root and link target file shares to enable file- and folder-level security. Also, domain DFS links can be replicated only between file shares on NTFS volumes.
Start with an empty DFS root folder to keep from having to replicate any data at the root level.
Do not replicate DFS roots because the root will try to replicate the data in the root folders plus the data contained within the link targets. Replication is not necessary if the links are already replicating. Because the roots do not replicate for redundancy, deploy domain DFS roots and add additional root targets.
Use DFS for read-only data, if possible.
Replicate DFS data only during nonpeak hours to reduce network congestion.
Back up at least one DFS link target and configure the backup to not update the archive bit. Changing the archive bit may trigger unnecessary replication.
Test antivirus programs thoroughly to ensure that no adverse effects are caused by the scanning of files on a replicated DFS target.
Verify that the drive containing the staging folder for a replication connection contains ample space to accept the amount of replicated data inbound and outbound to this server.
