I’ve been reading forum comments regarding the “pros and cons of mapped drives”. Not one article I’ve found correctly addressed the issues surrounding mapping drives by letter verses their supposed benefits which are limited. For historical reference, only Windows has “mapped drives”. Linux, Unix and other operating systems including Apple OSX use “mount points” or in Apples case, “Connect to Server” (which is almost as bad as a mapped drive letter n but not quite). Mount points and Apple “Server Connections” both require knowledge of the files real, genuine name of shared folder location on the network, often called the “UNC Path” in the Windows world, which stands for Universal Naming Convention. We are reaching a point in computing where even end users can essentially be considered computer illiterate if they do not know the UNC Path to the files they work with daily.
So what are the real benefits of using “mapped drives” designated by a chosen drive letter:
- It is easy to reference for end users to understand. This means an administrator can say “open your N drive” verses “open your Accounting share” or “your Accounting shared folder”. I’m not sure why one is more confusing than the other in the end users brain but in my experience if I use the word “share” users give me the blank look of evil.
- I’m not sure there is a #2. Any other administrators who can think of any other benefit of a mapped drive, leave a comment. Sure administrators can map drives to network resources using scripts so end users are not choosing their own random, often conflicting drive letters. That is more of a convenience to avoid potential issues of mapped drives than a benefit.
What are the limitations and issues caused by mapped drives:
- As any seasoned IT support veteran will tell you, on large networks there will inevitably be multiple “P drives” or a few “X drives” where X and P can be any letter in the alphabet, redundantly. When a user calls for support they will only be able to tell you “I can’t get to my P drive”. When you have “P drive” mapped to five different network shares from ten random workstations, good luck. You’re about to dig on the users machine to find out the UNC Path, the true location of the network share their particular “P drive” is pointing to.
- Modern applications are not designed to translate drive letter designation. Sure, MS Office and other historically Microsoft centric applications will adjust for the location of a users unique mapped drive designation. Newer web based applications will often gag on them or not identify them at all. Business reporting applications in particular, such as Qlikview and Business Objects, which rely on multiple data sources will make huge mess when trying to address those sources across a mapped drive letter.
- Virtualized applications make a mess and clog bandwidth trying to sling files around the world in circles and clog bandwidth to accommodate a file trying to be opened using a mapped drive. If a user in Phoenix, AZ runs a virtual instance of MS Word from a server in Raleigh, NC and then tries to open a file located on a mapped drive of their workstation (which is sometimes pointing to a share location in Raleigh, NC) the file will make not one, but TWO trips across the network, download the file to the users local workstation memory and then Word can open the file. Conversely, if the Phoenix user opens the same instance of Word published from the Raleigh Citrix server and then chooses “File…Open” or “Recent Files” inside word and uses the UNC Path to specify the file location, Word will open the file on the LAN, not across the WAN. Don’t believe it. Try it and see the difference. The first scenario requires a file download into memory across the network, the second scenario opens the file directly and almost instantly.
- Mapped drives make end users uniformed, often lazy computer users. They have no idea where their departmental or production network files reside. They only know “N drive”. Knowing file system hierarchy and server file locations on the network has historically made Unix, Linux and Mac users better computer users. It is what truly separates the plain ol’ “stupid end users” from the intermediate users. Anyone who does not know how to use the “backslash, backslash” \\ to find a file on a network share is not eligible to call themselves a “power user” under any circumstances as far as I’m concerned. Any developer or IT support staff who does not know how to use a UNC Path needs to cover up that fact by learning quickly or just quit the job immediately.
There are many benefits to using UNC Paths, mount points, mapped server shares and very few to using mapped drive letters. All the mapped drive was ever invented to do was dumb it down. That’s never good but has been historically embraced because well…. people are lazy and don’t want to learn.