working with afp and smb in enterprise

[ThirteenXIII]

for those working with afp and smb in enterprise, what is your experience?
what is better utilized in a mixed environment?
really looking for pitfalls of using smb as a primary on apple systems.

 

[aarond12]

Samba (SMB) works fine on Macs. Connecting to AD-authenticated shares isn't too difficult, either. Depending on how your configuration is, you might have to do some mucking around with WINS servers, or just use IP addresses. Other than that and having to enter your AD credentials all the time, it works fine.

 

[designs216]

... might have to do some mucking around with WINS servers, or just use IP addresses. Other than that and having to enter your AD credentials all the time, it works fine.

This has been my experience as the only Mac user at my company. IT was not overly enthused when they heard I bought an Apple rig but as long as I support myself, they don't cause a stink.

 

[DJLC]

As other posters have mentioned, SMB on Mac can be a bit flaky, but it DOES work.

What I've found is that OS X Keychain won't remember your AD credentials — I think the backslash after the domain throws it off — but that's a minor annoyance.

 

[cbott]

We are a mostly Windows shop and have been running SMB exclusively until now. Macs will WORK with SMB but we've found that they are very slow to show what's contained in the folders on the network. Transfer speeds seem fine. You have to enter in AD credentials all the time. My biggest complaint is that they aren't indexed by the Mac so searching for files is a lot harder.

Our AFP share just went live for certain Mac users. I haven't used it myself yet but have received reports that folders display much faster and they are being indexed by Spotlight so users can search to find what they are looking for.

Again, I haven't tested them myself so I'm just passing on what I've been told by our users who are on them.