SBS 2003 R2 - Roaming Profiles vs Folder Redirection

[Major_Disaster]

Hello,

I was wondering what your thoughts are on this topic.

Ive setup roaming profiles in the past, that seemed to have worked well, yet i say many websites saying folder redirection is preferred.

To be honest, im not even completely sure of the difference between the two...

I also have a specific question, when using folder redirection to redirect "application data", does that redirect %userprofile%/application data or %userprofile%/local settings/application data or both?

Cheers

 

[Saundie]

When you use a roaming profile, the entire %userprofile% directory is replicated onto the server. Folder redirection simply redirects the location of the special folders (My Documents, Desktop etc).

Personally, I use both folder redirection and roaming profiles. By redirecting the My Documents and Desktop folders to shares on a fileserver, you can keep the size of the roaming profiles down to a minimum. The only downside is that remote users won't be able to access their documents without some kind of VPN access, but it's simple enough to have a seperate policy for those users.

 

[RSR]

Id personally try and use folder redirection on the key folders. I use roaming profiles at work and it causes no end of problems.

Here is the Technet best practice guide:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781516(WS.10).aspx

 

[Mr_T]

We use both roaming & folder redirection where I currently work - however due to my boss being as tight as a ducks ****, the file server struggles with the 50 or so people it serves on folder redirection. It's especially noticable for the developers who use Visual Studio as there is lots of access to the application data folder that is redirected.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been moving developers back on to local profiles with no folder redirection - but at the moment it does leave them a little exposed if their pc was to suffer a HDD failure.

 

[BlueMhz]

Generally the difference is:

Roaming Profile = User profile gets copied down from server when logging on, and copied up to the server when logging off.

Redirection = Parts of the user profile (e.g. Desktop, My Documents folders etc) are redirected to a share on a server.

Both methods can be used on desktops or laptops, but redirection on laptops also requires offline folders to be configured.

The problem with roaming profiles is that if your users have large profiles (e.g large files in My Documents, or PST files) then it can take some time to logon and logoff, as the profile needs to get copied to/from the server.

 

[Sin_Chase]

If your users can be trusted to use home drives and other departmental mapped drives and not store in My Documents then Roaming Profiles often suffice. If they cannot be trusted, re-direct the major offending folders.

 

[iaind]

As above, use a combination of 2. Users can never be trusted to do anything sensible, so I redirect My Documents to the home folder and use roaming profiles.

I'm looking at redirecting the desktop to decrease login times (see above about not being able to trust users) and the start menu based on group membership as we currently have a ridiculous login script for our Citrix setup that copies start menu icons at login based on groups

 

[s0ck]

I avoid both and tell them to save to their home directory or it won't get backed up.

 

[iaind]

I avoid both and tell them to save to their home directory or it won't get backed up.

Why would you avoid both?

They're both effective mechanisms if they're managed properly and users rarely care if something isnt backed up - it's still your problem if it goes wrong as far as they're concerned

 

[Sin_Chase]

Roaming profiles help productivity. Without them you move PC then every single app customisation is dead? Nah, that's not going to work in the business well.

It's also a COMPLETE arse when thier PC dies.

 

[s0ck]

They have their place i.e. hot desking/call centre but for the majority of users who walk to the same PC everyday and open Outlook plus one LOB app, it's just another call driver.

 

[Sin_Chase]

5 minutes of implementation versus setting up desktops from scratch because their local profile died on the old desktop.

Such a basic implementation should not generate any calls really.

 

[DiscoDave]

I use a combination of the two.

Set roaming profiles up but use folder redirection for the My Documents / My Desktop folders.

Roaming profiles alone will just upload and download the entire user profile every time the user logs off and back on again. So if you have several GB's worth of data on the desktop, this is downloaded every time you log on.

Redirecting these folders to a centralised storage means that you essentially just point to directories on a server to access these folders, therefore preventing the need to download them on every log on.