Windows server and automatic backups

[BerzerkFilms]

I recently installed Windows server 2016 and set up a domain controller and DNS with it but I want to know what i can do to have any user logged in to the server save anything they download to the server instead of computer and if I can't do that, how do I set up automatic backups onto the server every night? Thanks, Dana

[Marine_Boy]

I don't know if you can make the users logged into your domain(I assume that was what you meant) save the downloaded files on the server, not on the machine that they are logged on on, automatically, but you can make a shared folder on your server and while downloading something choose it as a destination. As for backups you can use Veeam Endpoint Backup. It's a free backup software. You can install it on each client of your domain, schedule the backups for every night and the destination folder to store the backups would be a share that you created on your server  

[leadeater]

Folder Redirection is what your after if you want users to save files to the server when logged on to workstations/desktops that are joined to the domain.

[Dark]

Would roaming profiles not be a suitable solution?

[leadeater]

Just now, Dark said:

Would roaming profiles not be a suitable solution?

Roaming profiles should never be used without folder redirection else you'll get extremely long login and logout times. Roaming profiles fully sync on login and logout so if you have 20GB of documents you'll have very frustrated users.

 

Folder redirection moves the user data out of the profile to a UNC/SMB path so the profile only contains actual profile data and settings meaning they stay at a small size and therefore have very acceptable login and logout times, basically unnoticeable.

[Dark]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Roaming profiles should never be used without folder redirection else you'll get extremely long login and logout times. Roaming profiles fully sync on login and logout so if you have 20GB of documents you'll have very frustrated users.

 

Folder redirection moves the user data out of the profile to a UNC/SMB path so the profile only contains actual profile data and settings meaning they stay at a small size and therefore have very acceptable login and logout times, basically unnoticeable.

So the only downside is accessing files is limited by the network speed (not so much an issue with smaller files).  It still alleviates the much longer initial transfer of the profile.

[leadeater]

Just now, Dark said:

So the only downside is accessing files is limited by the network speed (not so much an issue with smaller files).  It still alleviates the much longer initial transfer of the profile.

Other than the desktop having a local SSD the server storage even over 1Gb network is much faster than the local HDD. Most of the important activity still happens on the local disk so even with an SSD you'll gain all the benefits as normal, opening up for example a word document in your documents directory that actually lives on the server will be in practical terms the same speed.

 

For mobile devices you turn on offline files which caches the user data/home drive to the device so you can still access all your files when not on the network and once you are back on the network it will automatically sync the files to the server in the background.