Partition network shares for NTFS partitions with local paths

The Storage service creates a network share for a partition if you specify the storage type as NTFS Volume and you specify a local path; for example a path that begins C:\... or H:\.... The Storage services on remote Enterprise Vault servers use the partition network share when they require access to the data on the partition.

Note:

Enterprise Vault does not create a partition network share if you specify the partition's location with a UNC path.

A benefit of using partition network shares is that, each time a Storage service starts, it verifies its local partition network shares. If the verification of a share fails, the Storage service attempts to create a new partition network share.

A partition network share has a UNC path with the following format:

\\server\EVPartitionnumber$

where server is the Enterprise Vault server on which the partition is located, and number is a unique hexadecimal number.

The Storage service creates the partition network share regardless of the vault store's sharing level. The Storage service grants access only to the Vault Service account, which has full access rights.

If the Storage service cannot create a partition network share, either for the first time or when verification fails, the Storage service does not start. Enterprise Vault logs an error in the event log with the following description:

The verification of a Partition Network Share failed.

The most likely cause is that Enterprise Vault cannot access the root path of the partition for one of the following reasons:

A drive is offline.
A disk is corrupt.
The computer's name has changed.
In a cluster environment, a shared drive was not configured properly.

If you see this error event, use Windows Explorer to check whether you can access the local paths to the local NTFS partitions.