SMB 3.0: Came out with Windows 8 in 2012, with many changes.

SMB 2.1: Introduced with Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, bringing enhanced efficiency for caching and performance.

The 2.0 specification includes additional features, such as Wide Area Network (WAN) acceleration support, and reducing client-server latency, i.e., the “chattiness” of the original SMB/CIFS.

SMB 2.0: Released with Windows Vista in 2006.

These dialects each improve upon the functionality of their predecessors, including stronger cybersecurity features and better performance capabilities.

The protocol allows client systems to communicate with server systems over a network, enabling the use of file and print services.ĬIFS’ main features include: supporting larger file sizes, moving away from NetBIOS towards TCP/IP transport, symbolic links, and hard links.ĬIFS clients can also gain simultaneous access to named pipes, print queues, shared files, and other resources.Īside from CIFS, Windows has continued to release several newer SMB versions, known as “dialects”. What is CIFS?ĬIFS (Common Internet File System) is a version of SMB (or dialect of SMB) introduced by Microsoft in 1996 with the release of Windows 95. Subsequent dialects have seen improvements to SMB’s security and performance. This addition enabled computers to access remote Windows file sharing on a network as if it were a local hard drive disk. Since its release, Microsoft has made many changes to SMB, such as merging the file server protocol with the network operating system LAN Manager. Developed by IBM in 1983, the protocol allows devices to communicate with remote computers and servers through a client-server approach. SMB (Server Message Block) is a network protocol used for file transfer, print services, and network browsing across a local area network (LAN).

The CIFS protocol is now considered an outdated SMB dialect, with the newer SMB 2.0 and SMB 3.0 addressing many of the inefficiencies of CIFS. The key difference between CIFS and SMB is that CIFS is a dialect of SMB – a particular implementation of the SMB protocol. CIFS (Common Internet File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) are both Windows file-sharing protocols used in storage systems, such as network-attached systems (NAS).

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