Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: intel I work in a small office of all Mac users (Leopard). We recently had an IT company set up a windows server in our new office. When we connect to our shared folder in the data folder on the server we are limited to only being able to copy 1 gig of data to it even though the IT company said there should be no limit. When I connect to the folder remotely through ftp I am not limited by file size but it takes much longer to copy. Is there something on the Mac side that is creating this limitation? Any advice is appreciated.
MelPhoto@officeformac.com wrote: > I work in a small office of all Mac users (Leopard). We recently had > an IT company set up a windows server in our new office. When we > connect to our shared folder in the data folder on the server we are > limited to only being able to copy 1 gig of data to it even though > the IT company said there should be no limit. When I connect to the > folder remotely through ftp I am not limited by file size but it > takes much longer to copy. Is there something on the Mac side that is > creating this limitation? Any advice is appreciated. Did your contractor use Windows Server's built-in File Services for Macintosh? If so, shame on them. The File Services for Macintosh software on Windows Server has not been updated in years. It's limited to 31 character file names, 64,000 files per volume and prone to connectivity issues with a modern Mac OS. I suggest one of these options: 1. Use SMB (Windows file sharing protocol) instead of AFP (Apple's file sharing protocol). I have not tested if Leopard has improved its SMB connectivity but Tiger and earlier are slow IMHO and leave hidden files that can be made visible to Windows users connecting to your server. A good SMB client is Dave or ADmitMac from <http://www.thursby.com>. It's not free but it's very well supported and very well done. 2. Use ExtremeZ-IP from <http://www.grouplogic.com>. It's expensive but worth it if you have several Macs connecting to your server. Given comparable costs between Dave/ADmitMac and ExtremeZ-IP I would go with ExtremeZ-IP simply because it is an AFP server and AFP is the native file sharing protocol of the Mac. Hope this helps! -- bill William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/> Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
Thanks Bill! I just realized there was a response to my question. You'll have to forgive my ignorance on this subject matter, but are the 2 programs you suggested applications that would be installed on our Macs or on the windows server. If on our Macs, does anything need to be done on the server side. How do I determine which protocol (smb or afp) does that depend on how the server is set-up? I know in our entourage mail settings we put in smb before server name to connect to the exchange when in the office. Currently to connect to the Data & Home folders on the server we select the name of our server from the finder window under shared tab then enter our user name & password - we don't use any other software. Are you suggesting this may be reason for the size limit? Also, a new but related question: I spend most of my time outside the office & need to remotely connect to these shared folders on the server. Do I need special software for that as well? I tried using "Connect to server" from the Go menu. For server address I entered smb://(servername)/data but the server could not be located. I can get to the data folder using a ftp client (Cute ftp) but my boss wants to be able to access it the same way she would when she is in the office (understanding the connection will be slower). I know this should be possible but how? This is all very new to me. Thanks again for your help - it is much appreciated! Mel
Hi Mel! My comments are inline with yours. MelPhoto@officeformac.com wrote: > I just realized there was a response to my question. You'll have to > forgive my ignorance on this subject matter, but are the 2 programs > you suggested applications that would be installed on our Macs or on > the windows server. If on our Macs, does anything need to be done on > the server side. How do I determine which protocol (smb or afp) does > that depend on how the server is set-up? I know in our entourage mail > settings we put in smb before server name to connect to the exchange > when in the office. SMB is the file sharing protocol used by Windows. AFP is the file sharing protocol used by Macs. Mac OS X can use both AFP (its native protocol for file sharing) as well as SMB. Dave/ADmitMac is a much better SMB client for Mac OS X. It's great for a small group of Macs because you don't want to have to reconfigure your server for just a handful of Mac clients. ExtremeZ-IP is a much better AFP server for Windows Server. What comes with Windows Server 2003 and earlier is largely incompatible with Mac OS X's version of AFP. Microsoft has not kept it up-to-date and they plan on getting rid of AFP in the next version of Windows Server to be released. EZIP is great for larger numbers of Mac users because it does require you install software on your server (not the Macs). By the way, SMB is not used by Entourage. You don't need to put anything more than "server.domain.com" in the Exchange Server field. > Currently to connect to the Data & Home folders on the server we > select the name of our server from the finder window under shared tab > then enter our user name & password - we don't use any other > software. Are you suggesting this may be reason for the size limit? Yes. If you use something like "server" or "server.domain.com" then you're defaulting to the AFP protocol. If you were to instead use "smb://server" or "smb://server.domain.com" then you'd be connecting as a Windows machine would connect. > Also, a new but related question: I spend most of my time outside the > office & need to remotely connect to these shared folders on the > server. Do I need special software for that as well? I tried using > "Connect to server" from the Go menu. For server address I entered > smb://(servername)/data but the server could not be located. I can > get to the data folder using a ftp client (Cute ftp) but my boss > wants to be able to access it the same way she would when she is in > the office (understanding the connection will be slower). I know this > should be possible but how? This is all very new to me. Your company network is most likely connected to the Internet over a router. You'll need something like VPN (Virtual Private Networking) to first connect to your office network and then once connected you should be able to work as if you're at the office. That's a discussion far beyond the scope of this newsgroup or my expertise. If you're interested in connecting to your servers at work from home then I suggest you hire a networking consultant. Hope this helps! -- bill William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/> Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/> YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Thanks so much Bill for taking the time to respond to my questions! You've been a big help. Mel
