[Samba] roaming profile doubles in size at client logout

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, miguelmedalha at sapo.pt!


>>> I've connected a Windows 7 client and logged in with a roaming profile
>>> user, copied some 4GB of data in the profile and logged out. Surely enough,
>>> the data was synchronized but when I login and logout again, the profile
>>> gets copied on the samba server in full versus just the modified data.
>>
>>> For instance, if the profile on the server has 4GB and I logout from the
>>> client, the profile will grow up to 8GB and then drop down to 4GB (in case
>>> no new data get's added meanwhile). This looks to me like instead of doing
>>> an incremental diff, the whole profile get's copied and then compared and
>>> the same data deleted.
>>
> (...)
>>
>> This is, unfortunately, "normal". As much as the Microsoft's definition of
>> "normality" goes.
>> What I'm doing is I'm excluding local Documents and a number of other folders
>> from profile sync (through GPO) and then doing a manual rsync in background
>> every now and then. That is for folders that are not located in the network
>> already.
>> This also helps with profile size that is getting copied back and forth
>> between server and client. 4Gb multiplied by sixteen users… I don't want to
>> see it happening to my network.

> Roaming profiles are, generally speaking, outdated technology. Folder  
> redirection is much more effective. It covers most of the benefits of  
> roaming profiles without the penalties.

If you didn't read what I said, I'm already redirecting a number of folders to
the networked locations. The bulk of what is actually "roaming" is
AppData/Roaming, which is quite large for certain applications. In some cases,
unnecessarily large. But I can't do anything about it, as applications decline
to start with these folders redirected. Still, it is not in gigabytes range.
Which is QUITE a relief.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Wednesday, April 29, 2015 04:45:23

Sorry for my terrible english...