Migrate from AFP to SMB - Impossible??

D

dhlo

Registered
Is anyone aware of a way to migrate files/folders from an AFP share on a Windows 2003 server to an SMB share on the same server?

This has been a thorn in my side for almost a year. Nobody seems to have an answer, so I've tried my own thing:

In the AFP shares, which is legacy from OS9, the OSX 10.4 Macs can see the files properly. But, if they try to use them in an SMB share, to the same location on the same server, the special attributes of the files are gone. All of the files look like they are broken, etc.

I've tried to copy the files from the AFP share, through an OSX machine, to an SMB share on the same server and this does work, but the number of files, and levels of folders, seems to choke the copy and the speed is brutal, even on Gb. They have 800GB in 650K+ files. I tried the copy in the GUI and from the terminal. It would work for a while and then choke on various files for various reasons.

As I said, this has been an impossible task. There is no information on the Internets. Someone out there must have gone through this. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Dean
 
You could try and create an archive of some of the files and then copy that to the smb share and expand it. I experienced something similar when using Dave to access shares as it tagged it with an attribute.

If I archived them and moved them and then expanded them via the same system the special attributes were not needed on the individual files only the archive one.
 
dhlo said:
...

As I said, this has been an impossible task. There is no information on the Internets. ...
Click to expand...
This is a decades old problem with decades old solutions. There are new solutions, as well. To amplify Tommo's suggestion:
  • If you intend to use your files under Windows, then ZIP them before you save them on your server.
  • If you intend to use your files only on the Mac, then store them in .dmg disk image files before you save them on your server.
 
The usual fix I use for this is to save the files to a local Mac from AFP, delete them from the share, then put them back up via SMB. Might eat up a weekend, but it should save you.

From what I have gathered, the problem is the file's Resource fork not being recognized on SMB when it was initially uploaded via AFP. The broken file you see is the file's Data Fork without the other necessary component, so Finder doesn't know what to do with it when it sees it, since the Resource fork contains all the info regarding what type of file it is.

Good luck. Feel free to report back and let us know how it went.
 
Why not just share the same drive/folder with both SMB and AFP? We do that here on our Server 2003 machine and it works fine (although YMMV).
 
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