I was excited to evaluate Windows 2016 Server, especially its built-in disk de-duplication and ISCSI-target server features. I turned my test machine into a file server on a gigabit network, and everything worked as expected. But then I encountered a serious bottleneck when accessing and transferring network-shared files. There was a noticeable delay in accessing and transferring files to and from the test server.
I was puzzled. I tried everything I could think of to fix the problem, but nothing worked. Finally, I decided to uninstall every bit of feature and install one feature at a time. That's when I discovered the culprit: the "SMB bandwidth limit" feature.
The SMB bandwidth limit feature is designed to help administrators control and set bandwidth limits on SMB traffic. But in my case, it was actually causing the bottleneck. Once I uninstalled the feature, everything worked out fine. The file access and transfer was noticeably better.
I learned a valuable lesson from this experience: always check all the features of a new piece of software, even if you don't think you need them. Sometimes, a seemingly harmless feature can actually cause problems.
Here are some tips for troubleshooting file sharing problems in Windows 2016 Server:
- Check the network configuration. Make sure that the network is properly configured and that the file server is properly connected to the network.
- Check the file permissions. Make sure that the user has the correct permissions to access the files.
- Check the disk space. Make sure that there is enough disk space available on the file server.
- Check the network bandwidth. Make sure that the network bandwidth is sufficient for file sharing.
- Check the SMB bandwidth limit feature. Make sure that this feature is not enabled.
- If you're still having trouble, you can contact Microsoft support for help.
