SMB and CIFS

Server Message Block (SMB) was originally developed by IBM. CIFS is Microsoft’s version of SMB.

The names get used interchangeably, but modern operating systems run newer SMB versions, so “SMB” is the current term and CIFS is technically the old dialect.

It’s built for Windows clients; Samba lets UNIX and Linux boxes speak it too.

The vocabulary: servers “share,” clients “use” or “map” the share.

Redundant networking on the array side: multiple ports (e0d at 172.23.3.100 and e0e at .101, say) uplinked to separate switches, so one switch or port dying doesn’t drop the share.

It’s a file-level protocol, so NAS. See SAN vs NAS.