We deployed a FreeNAS server with Samba shares on a network consisting of Windows and OSX clients.
When the OSX clients copy files onto the Samba shares, a lot of AppleDouble (for example, ._something.jpg) files will be created. When copying the same files to a file share on a Windows-based server, the files won't be created.
What is special about the Samba share that causes this behavior and is there a way to prevent it?
OS X's SMB client will store extended file metadata in named data streams if it determines that the server supports them; if not, it falls back to storing the metadata in AppleDouble ("._") files. See Apple support article #HT4017.
A windows server serving from an NTFS volume will support these automatically (they get stored as NTFS alternate data streams). AIUI with a Samba server, you need an extension like vfs_streams or vfs_streams_depot, but I'm not sure of the details.
._files. Either way, usingveto filesto prevent the files is counter-productive as pointed out here: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/7086/…