SacoTechnology
Technical User
I’m new to managing MS SMB servers and would like to know what maintenance would everyone suggest should be done firstly on the client machines and then most importantly the server?
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Server and Client Maintenance Suggestions
- Thread starter SacoTechnology
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LWComputingMVP
IS-IT--Management
Keep an eye on the system reports you should have configured. That's the most important thing for the server. For the workstations, I don't do much - other than the occasional defrag.
And of course, DO BACKUPS and TEST your backups - it's the worst possible thing when you go to restore and realize that you either don't know how or that the backups never worked right - or both!
And of course, DO BACKUPS and TEST your backups - it's the worst possible thing when you go to restore and realize that you either don't know how or that the backups never worked right - or both!
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ShackDaddy
MIS
Looking through the emailed server log each morning is probably the top choice. Over time you'll figure out which "warning" events you can ignore.
Here are some other tips:
On clients, make sure that if you have Norton AV installed, you turn off (or at least reconfigure) the Internet Worm protection, since it gets in the way of remote management and VPN use.
On servers, migrate the Users data folder on the server to another drive if you have a separate data drive from your OS drive. By default it's going to be on C:, and as it grows it may pinch your OS space.
On the server, if you aren't using the native SBS backup, make sure that you are doing an Exchange-aware backup, because I frequently see people either imaging their server or doing a full file-backup of their SBS boxes and thinking that they've got things covered. An Exchange-aware backup like the native SBS one (or NTBACKUP selecting the Exchange IS, or BExec backing up the IS) is required to flush transaction logs into the database and keep your server from being overwhelmed by logs and difficult to recover from a disaster.
On the server, do a defrag of all non-Exchange-database-holding drives, and afterward, if C: was one of those drives, configure the page file to be the maximum recommended size, and set both the minimum and maximum page file size to be the same. That will create a single (hopefully) uninterrupted page file on the disk that won't shrink and grow and deteriorate over time due to fragmentation.
If users are saving files into their folder on the server, configure your backup to ignore .mp3 file types. In general have users stash large numbers of fat files like pictures and music outside of their profile, like in C:\Music or C:\Pictures so that you can move that stuff separately if you have to migrate their profile. It is hell on the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard when you inadvertently have a couple gigs of tunes in the user profile, and keeping it in C:\folder is a good way to make sure it gets noticed.
ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting
Here are some other tips:
On clients, make sure that if you have Norton AV installed, you turn off (or at least reconfigure) the Internet Worm protection, since it gets in the way of remote management and VPN use.
On servers, migrate the Users data folder on the server to another drive if you have a separate data drive from your OS drive. By default it's going to be on C:, and as it grows it may pinch your OS space.
On the server, if you aren't using the native SBS backup, make sure that you are doing an Exchange-aware backup, because I frequently see people either imaging their server or doing a full file-backup of their SBS boxes and thinking that they've got things covered. An Exchange-aware backup like the native SBS one (or NTBACKUP selecting the Exchange IS, or BExec backing up the IS) is required to flush transaction logs into the database and keep your server from being overwhelmed by logs and difficult to recover from a disaster.
On the server, do a defrag of all non-Exchange-database-holding drives, and afterward, if C: was one of those drives, configure the page file to be the maximum recommended size, and set both the minimum and maximum page file size to be the same. That will create a single (hopefully) uninterrupted page file on the disk that won't shrink and grow and deteriorate over time due to fragmentation.
If users are saving files into their folder on the server, configure your backup to ignore .mp3 file types. In general have users stash large numbers of fat files like pictures and music outside of their profile, like in C:\Music or C:\Pictures so that you can move that stuff separately if you have to migrate their profile. It is hell on the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard when you inadvertently have a couple gigs of tunes in the user profile, and keeping it in C:\folder is a good way to make sure it gets noticed.
ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting
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