We have a NAS with relatively slow disks that is choking when users are logging in in the morning. We're migrating user home directories and profiles to a newer, faster server, but I was wondering if it might be wise to look into finding a way to cluster a file server so we can have 2+ servers sharing the access load and network load.
Does DFS do anything like this, or is our best option simply to throw faster hardware at the issue? I'd rather not have to use multiple servers and partition where users are placed so we manually spread the load out, but is that the only real option? How do other people deal with this issue?
The NAS units are running Windows 2003/2008 (the slower one is a dedicated NAS appliance from DELL).
Absolutely Window Cluster Services can do that, you could also consider a dual-head NAS box like a low end NetApp.