We support several hundred Macs (Snow Lep, Lion, Mt Lion) in our AD infrastructure. Most of our file storage is based off of standard server 2008/12 shares in the AD domain.
In general, I run Mountain Lion, I see very few issues accessing files off of domain shares (these are not NAS). I normally create, open, run, save the files (spreadsheet, word, etc.) directly off of the share.
I would say that it works "good enough" for a production service for Macs (expecially based on the fact that the majority of our customers are running Microsoft based computers). Maybe once a week I get a "file locked, read only" message when I access
a file on a share. If it doesn't "unlock" itself after a few minutes, I just do as save as to a different version. I have not yet (after 1-2 years) experienced a corrupted file or similar issue. I also use a Microsoft based PC for additional work, so maybe
that is causing some issues with my files at times (although I always make sure to close the files on the PC prior to ever opening them on the Mac).
The Macs are not connected/joined to the domain. We just enter our domain info (set up permanent alias, etc.) when we connect to the shared folders on the servers.
I've never accessed storage off of a Mac (or a Linux/Unix) server, so I can't compare to that environment.
Thanks,
--
Geoff Weatherford
Prototype Testing
IT Services
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences,
Colorado State University
(970) 491-2627
email@hidden