U: Drive Changes with DFS Transition

As of January 28, all U: drives will have been migrated to new servers. As part of the migration, U: drives will be mapped using a Distributed File System. What this means is that the new mapped location for the drives will be \\ad\fshome\username. This will automatically redirect the connection to whichever server is actually hosting the share. The primary benefit of this method is it allows the shares to be located on multiple servers (providing greater capability to expand storage sizes as needed) as well as allowing for the replacement of servers as needed without changing the drive mapping of the U: drive.

The new servers are now all encrypted to provide greater security for your data. Additionally, the “Previous Versions” tab on the properties option of files and folders is still enabled, allowing you to recover previous versions of files in the case of accidental change or deletion.

What will you see when the change happens?

Once the migration is complete, your original mapping will continue to work (if you are logged in at the time of the change) with file changes and new files being continuously replicated to the new servers. Once you log off and then log back in, you will see the U: drive is mapped to “UserName (\\AD\FSFiles) (U:)”  instead of “UserName$ (\\FSFiles) (U:)”

Important: If in the off chance you have links (such as in spreadsheets) or shortcuts using the UNC “\\fsfiles\UserName$” instead of just “U:”  Those links and/or shortcuts will need to be updated.

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