Is it possible to forward a file request from one server to another?

I have a barely getting by file server running Windows 2008 R2 (it also is the PDC, and exchange server, and DNS and DHCP and Certificate Server)

I am setting up a second server running Windows 2008 R2 on much beefier hardware which will become the PDC, DNS, DHCP, Certificate Server, and I'll be migrating exchange over to it as well.

My question is such, is it possible to have anyone going to \\server1\Files to automatically get sent to \\server2\files, and how would I do that?

From serverfault Solmead

• Have a look at DFS. It should do what you're looking for.

  joeqwerty : DFS will work, but not directly. The OP will have to change the UNC path that is used to access the folders to reference the DFS namespace. Requests to the UNC path \\server1\files will still go to server1. (I wanted to add this just to make sure the OP is clear on what changes he'll need to make).

  squillman : @joe Thanks, good point!

  joeqwerty : Glad to help...

  Solmead : Does DFS work on Mac OSX Snow Leopard?

  squillman : @Solmead As a server, I don't know. I can spell OSX and that's about it. From a client perspective it should work fine. It's transparent to the client.
  From squillman

• If you're doing DHCP then in theory you could migrate most of your workload over to a new server pretty seamlessly... there's no such thing as a true "PDC" in Active Directory, so when you get your new server and promote it to be a domain controller its essentially a 'peer' of your first server. You could move DHCP over to the new server and push out DNS settings for your new server via DHCP.

  Acting as a file server only is a good task for an 'older server,' and this would let you move everything over without having to update your users' UNC paths

  From Eric Gearhart