File System Access Services and Technologies

Windows Server 2008 R2 provides administrators with many different options to present file data to end users. These, of course, include the traditional file sharing methods, but also include presenting file data using web services. By default, Windows Server 2008 R2 systems running the File Services role support Windows 2000 clients and later. To support legacy Windows clients, UNIX clients, or legacy Apple Mac clients might require additional services and security modifications to the data. Several of the options available for presenting file data to end users are included in the proceeding sections.

Windows Folder Sharing

This is the traditional and most commonly used method to access server data using the server message block (SMB) protocol over TCP/IP. Windows systems, many UNIX systems, and current Apple Mac systems can access Microsoft servers using this protocol. The path to access the data uses the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path of \\server\sharename.