How we tested Windows 2003 Storage Server R2

How we conducted our Clear Choice Test of Microsoft’s Windows 2003 Storage Server R2 software.

We tested Microsoft’s Windows 2003 Storage Server R2 software on two OEM platforms: Dell’s PowerEdge 830 and HP’s DL100.

Our test network included a Windows 2003 Enterprise Server R2 running on an HP DL140 machine in a switched Gigabit Ethernet environment. Clients included an HP ZV5000 notebook (running Windows XP SP2/64-bit Edition), a Toshiba ML135 notebook (running XP SP2/32-bit Edition), a whitebox computer (MSI motherboard running XP SP2/32-bit Edition), a Mac PowerBook (OS/X 10.4.4) and several Linux clients.

Both OEM systems were received ready to connect to our Active Directory-based network and were easily joined to it. We configured both servers for Distributed File System (DFS) namespace replication support and tested them using our Active Directory server as the failover storage point.

DFS replication was checked using directory-services reporting, as well as data from an instance of Ethereal and a Fluke OptiView II to watch transmission and payload sizes during delta file copying and replication.

We also configured the single-instance storage on the Dell box and moved numerous directories from around the lab to the server to judge how efficient sparse file handling was.

We also tested file screening using varying file types and indexed file searches. We clocked searches locally through a directory tree, then through a directory tree on local media, and noted the differences.

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