LAN Storage Discovery best practices
The LAN Storage Discovery process can be disruptive because DS-Client must connect to each target share, read the files in the share, and prepare a signature for each file to report on common files, largest file sizes, file types, etc. Consider the following when using the LAN Storage Discovery Tool:
• To avoid interruptions to normal work flow, schedule LAN Discovery to run after business hours and set an End Time for the schedule.
Shares that have been recently scanned will not be in priority sequence for scanning. Only shares that have not been scanned will receive priority for the scanning process when the schedule is triggered again.
• It is recommended that you prepare a special Domain Administrator account that can access all the shares that need to be scanned. This will simplify the configuration of credentials required on the DS-Client and thereby reduce the potential for connection errors during LAN Discovery (DS-Client will try to use each of the credentials provided to connect to each share it tries to discover).
If using a Domain Administrator account is not an option, then you can create the same local Administrator account (user name and password) on each server that will be scanned.
• After the share discovery process has finished, a share list that can include duplicate shares (shares that are included in other shares) is displayed. Retain the duplicate shares with the option disabled, since you do not need to scan those files twice.
• Ignoring small files can reduce the network load and the total time required for the Scan Shares process.
• Adjust the number of threads used to scan the shares. If the number is higher, the network will be busier, but the total time for the scan share process will be less than if the number of threads is smaller.
• Use a Windows DS-Client to scan a Windows network, and a Linux client to scan a Linux network.
During a Scan Shares process, the network and I/O of the scanned machines and the DS-Client database server will normally remain under a constant heavy load.