CaseWare Working Papers 2010 – Network File Locations Errors

Just lately we have been seeing a lot of problems with CaseWare Working Papers 2010 and the files associated with the program being located on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (including SBS) file shares.

CaseWare has this to say:

• File corruption when using Windows Vista/Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 with SMB2

CaseWare International highly recommends disabling SMB2.

Specifically, the problems have reared their head with the Working Papers R2 and R3 updates applied.

This situation really gives us cause for pause.

Why, you might ask?

Because CaseWare’s recommendation to disable SMB2 (the network sharing protocol that gives us 100MB+/Second file copies on the network) takes us a huge step backwards in network performance.

Now, for a small accounting firm this may not be a big deal . . . depending on how many QuickBooks and Simply clients they are bookkeeping for. Or, how many large files are moving around on the network.

As soon as we disable SMB2 we are at a disadvantage for any large data sets moving around on the network. So, for our larger accounting firm clients with quite a number of QuickBooks files open simultaneously plus their regular network traffic we may start to hear complaints about poor network performance.

In our opinion, the suggestion to disable SMB2 comes at too high a cost for most accounting firms.

With the just released R7 for CaseWare Working Papers 2010 we are hoping that we will see things settle down to the same level RTM had (virtually no issues).

If not, we may be looking at setting up a small NAS appliance with a folder share _just for CaseWare files_ so as to not impact the overall performance of the network.

BTW, our last attempt to contact CaseWare support took 5 days before their initial response which was to e-mail another department and then _another_ 3 days before the answer finally came through. Eight days to straighten out an activation issue with CaseWare Working Papers 2010 . . . ouch.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

A Single Drive NAS Setup For Business?

When it comes to taking care of a client’s business I.T. needs, cutting corners to keep costs down usually comes back to bite the one “saving” those costs.

One area where there is no real cost savings relative to the risks involved is data storage.

Hard drives, even SSD ones, have moving parts. They fail.

So, using a single drive solution to store critical shared data along with all of the workstation’s backups may not be the wisest of moves.

We have been called into an office where users could no longer connect to their shared data or backup their workstations to the NAS device a previous I.T. support company had installed for them.

The NAS unit was a single drive LaCie Peripherals device:

When we had a look at the setup, the device was plugged into a switch along with a workstation and a networked printer. There was a cable not plugged into the switch that turned out to be the run to the main switch in the basement of the building.

However, when that network cable was plugged in none of the other workstations could connect to the LaCie device.

We power cycled the LaCie to see if perhaps it was hung up as we could hear the drive spinning inside of it.

Once the unit power cycled itself, there was a distinct clicking sound that started to emanate from the unit.

Now the real struggle begins as the organization is in transition and it may not become quite clear exactly what has been lost in the shared folders and in the backup directories.

We will try a few recovery tactics on the device when we get permission to open it up on Monday, but we are not holding too much hope that the data will be recoverable by us. They may be in for a recovery charge from a third party.

When it comes to client data, it is absolutely imperative that the shared company data be stored on a device that has at least a pair of mirrored RAID 1 drives:

Since the device was also being used to backup all of the client workstations, a better solution would have been to use at least a pair of the single drive NAS solutions in a backup rotation.

Then, if one of the single drive units failed, the other would provide the necessary redundancy.

Disaster Recovery Planning needs to be a part of ANY data storage solution we are looking at providing our clients.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer