How to Check SMB Continuous Availability in Windows 11

Monday, October 5, 2026

Learn how to check SMB Continuous Availability in Windows 11 using PowerShell, inspect share settings, and troubleshoot SMB failover and high availability.

SMB Continuous Availability is an important feature for Windows file-sharing environments that need to remain accessible during planned maintenance or certain server failures. It is especially relevant when Windows clients connect to SMB shares hosted by a failover cluster or a Scale-Out File Server.

Windows 11 includes PowerShell tools that can help you inspect SMB share properties, including whether a share is marked as continuously available. This can be useful when troubleshooting SMB failover, network file access, or applications that depend on highly available file shares.

In this guide, you will learn how to check SMB Continuous Availability in Windows 11 using PowerShell, inspect the ContinuouslyAvailable property, check CATimeout, compare multiple shares, and understand the difference between Continuous Availability and other SMB features such as leasing, oplocks, encryption, and caching.

What Is SMB Continuous Availability?

SMB Continuous Availability is a property of an SMB share that supports scenarios where SMB clients can maintain access to a file share when the underlying clustered file server resource moves between nodes.

Microsoft describes SMB Transparent Failover as a feature that allows supported SMB clients to reconnect to another cluster node without interrupting applications that are using files on the share. The feature requires a supported failover cluster and SMB shares configured with the Continuous Availability property.

This is different from simply having two computers that contain copies of the same files. Continuous Availability is part of the SMB and Windows Server clustering architecture and is intended for specific high-availability file-server scenarios.

Why Check SMB Continuous Availability?

Checking this property can help you understand how an SMB share is configured before troubleshooting a failover or availability problem.

Verify whether an SMB share is marked as continuously available.
Inspect the continuous availability timeout.
Compare settings between multiple SMB shares.
Investigate SMB transparent failover problems.
Confirm the configuration of clustered file shares.
Separate Continuous Availability issues from ordinary network problems.
Document SMB share configuration for troubleshooting.

It is particularly useful when a client can access a clustered share normally but experiences problems when the file-server role moves between cluster nodes.

Before You Start

Open Windows PowerShell or PowerShell with an account that has sufficient permissions to inspect the SMB shares on the computer or server you are checking.

Keep in mind that an ordinary Windows 11 computer does not automatically become a highly available SMB file server simply because an SMB share has a property related to Continuous Availability.

SMB Transparent Failover is designed around supported Windows Server failover-cluster configurations. Windows 11 acts as an SMB client in many of these environments. Microsoft lists Windows 8 and later as supported SMB clients for this feature, while the server side requires a supported Windows Server failover cluster.

How to Check SMB Continuous Availability

The simplest method is to use Get-SmbShare and display the ContinuouslyAvailable property.

Get-SmbShare | Select-Object Name, Path, ContinuouslyAvailable

The result may look similar to this:

Name        Path                    ContinuouslyAvailable
----        ----                    --------------------
Documents   C:\Shares\Documents     False
Projects    D:\Shares\Projects      True
Public      D:\Shares\Public        False

The ContinuouslyAvailable value tells you whether the SMB share is configured with the Continuous Availability property.

How to Check One SMB Share

If you know the name of the SMB share you want to inspect, specify it with the -Name parameter.

Get-SmbShare -Name "Projects" |
    Select-Object Name, Path, ContinuouslyAvailable

This produces a smaller result that is easier to read when troubleshooting a particular share.

Name      Path                  ContinuouslyAvailable
----      ----                  --------------------
Projects  D:\Shares\Projects    True

A value of True indicates that the share has the Continuous Availability property enabled.

View All Properties of an SMB Share

Sometimes the Continuous Availability property alone is not enough. You may want to inspect the complete SMB share configuration.

Get-SmbShare -Name "Projects" | Format-List *

Among the properties displayed, look for entries such as:

ContinuouslyAvailable
CATimeout
AvailabilityType
ShareState
CurrentUsers
Path
ScopeName
CachingMode
LeasingMode
EncryptData
CompressData

Microsoft's Get-SmbShare documentation shows that these properties can be returned as part of an SMB share object. Its examples also demonstrate a clustered share with ContinuouslyAvailable : True and a CATimeout value.

How to Check the SMB Continuous Availability Timeout

The CATimeout property specifies the continuous availability timeout associated with the SMB share.

Get-SmbShare |
    Select-Object Name, ContinuouslyAvailable, CATimeout

For a specific share:

Get-SmbShare -Name "Projects" |
    Select-Object Name, ContinuouslyAvailable, CATimeout

Do not interpret CATimeout as a general Internet or network timeout. It is specifically associated with continuous availability behavior for the SMB share. Microsoft documents -CATimeout as the parameter for specifying the continuous availability timeout.

How to Check Which Shares Have Continuous Availability Enabled

If a computer or server has many SMB shares, filtering the results can make the configuration easier to review.

Get-SmbShare |
    Where-Object ContinuouslyAvailable -eq $true |
    Select-Object Name, Path, ContinuouslyAvailable, CATimeout

This displays only shares where the Continuous Availability property is enabled.

You can also search for shares where the property is disabled:

Get-SmbShare |
    Where-Object ContinuouslyAvailable -eq $false |
    Select-Object Name, Path, ContinuouslyAvailable, CATimeout

This can be useful when comparing several shares on the same server.

How to Compare Continuous Availability With Other SMB Settings

Continuous Availability should not be confused with other SMB share properties. You can inspect several important settings at the same time:

Get-SmbShare |
    Select-Object Name, Path,
    ContinuouslyAvailable,
    CATimeout,
    CachingMode,
    LeasingMode,
    EncryptData,
    CompressData

This gives you a useful overview of several SMB features.

Property	Purpose
ContinuouslyAvailable	Indicates whether the share is configured for Continuous Availability.
CATimeout	Specifies the continuous availability timeout.
CachingMode	Controls Offline Files caching behavior for the share.
LeasingMode	Controls SMB leasing behavior for the share.
EncryptData	Indicates whether SMB share encryption is enabled.
CompressData	Indicates whether the share requests SMB compression.

For example, you can read more about the caching property in How to Check SMB Share Caching Mode in Windows 11.

Continuous Availability vs SMB Leasing

SMB Continuous Availability and SMB leasing are different features.

Leasing is related to client-side caching and maintaining state for files and directories. Continuous Availability is associated with maintaining SMB access during supported clustered file-server failover scenarios.

For this reason, seeing LeasingMode configured on a share does not mean that the share is continuously available.

If you need to investigate both settings, check them separately:

Get-SmbShare -Name "Projects" |
    Select-Object Name, ContinuouslyAvailable, LeasingMode

You can also review the previous guide on How to Check SMB Leasing in Windows 11.

Continuous Availability vs SMB Oplocks

SMB opportunistic locking, or oplocks, is another feature that should not be confused with Continuous Availability.

Oplocks are associated with file caching and client access behavior. Continuous Availability is associated with the ability of supported SMB clients to maintain access through supported clustered file-server failover scenarios.

If you are troubleshooting file caching or application behavior, inspect oplocks and leasing separately rather than assuming that the ContinuouslyAvailable property controls them.

See How to Check SMB Opportunistic Locking (Oplocks) in Windows 11 for the related configuration.

Check the SMB Client Connection

After inspecting the server-side share configuration, you can examine active SMB client connections.

Get-SmbConnection |
    Select-Object ServerName, ShareName, Dialect,
    ContinuouslyAvailable, Encrypted

This is useful because checking the share configuration and checking the active client connection answer different questions.

The share configuration tells you how the SMB share is configured. The active SMB connection tells you information about the connection currently established between the client and server.

This is especially useful when troubleshooting a clustered file server. You can combine this check with the existing How to Check SMB Connections in Windows 11 guide.

Check SMB Sessions During Troubleshooting

If you are investigating an availability problem from the server side, SMB sessions can provide additional information about connected clients.

Get-SmbSession |
    Select-Object SessionId, ClientComputerName, ClientUserName, NumOpens

You can then inspect open files associated with SMB activity:

Get-SmbOpenFile |
    Select-Object ClientComputerName, ClientUserName,
    FileName, ShareRelativePath

These commands do not directly prove that transparent failover will succeed, but they can help identify which clients, users, and files are involved when diagnosing an SMB problem.

For more details, see How to Check SMB Sessions in Windows 11 and How to Check Open SMB Files in Windows 11.

Check the Share State and Availability Type

When working with clustered SMB infrastructure, it can also be useful to inspect the share state and availability type.

Get-SmbShare |
    Select-Object Name, ShareState, AvailabilityType,
    ContinuouslyAvailable, CATimeout

These properties can provide useful context when you are investigating a share hosted by a failover cluster or another specialized SMB configuration.

Microsoft's documentation includes AvailabilityType and ContinuouslyAvailable as properties that can be inspected through Get-SmbShare.

Can You Enable Continuous Availability With PowerShell?

The Set-SmbShare cmdlet includes a -ContinuouslyAvailable parameter for modifying the property of an SMB share.

Set-SmbShare -Name "Projects" -ContinuouslyAvailable $true

However, this command should not be treated as a way to turn an ordinary standalone Windows 11 computer into a failover file server.

Continuous Availability is most meaningful in supported Windows Server failover-cluster scenarios. Microsoft states that SMB Transparent Failover requires a failover cluster with at least two configured nodes, along with appropriately configured file shares.

Therefore, do not change this property simply because you want better network performance or because an SMB connection occasionally disconnects. First determine whether the environment actually uses a supported high-availability SMB architecture.

How to Verify a Change

If you have intentionally modified an SMB share property, verify the resulting configuration:

Get-SmbShare -Name "Projects" |
    Select-Object Name, Path, ContinuouslyAvailable, CATimeout

You should confirm that the property now reflects the intended configuration.

For administrative changes, it is also a good practice to document the original value, the new value, the reason for the change, and the expected behavior.

Common SMB Continuous Availability Troubleshooting Steps

If an SMB client loses access during a server or cluster failover, do not assume that the ContinuouslyAvailable property is the only possible cause.

Verify that the SMB share has ContinuouslyAvailable set appropriately.
Check the SMB dialect used by the active connection.
Verify that the client is running a supported SMB version.
Check the failover cluster configuration and health.
Check the SMB share's AvailabilityType.
Review SMB client and server event logs.
Check SMB Multichannel and network interfaces.
Check whether the affected application supports the expected failover behavior.
Inspect active SMB sessions and open files.
Compare the configuration with another working share.

SMB Multichannel can be inspected using the guide How to Check SMB Multichannel in Windows 11.

You should also verify the SMB dialect with How to Check SMB Dialect in Windows 11 when compatibility is suspected.

Useful PowerShell Commands

Command	Purpose
`Get-SmbShare`	Lists SMB shares.
`Get-SmbShare -Name "Projects"`	Checks one SMB share.
`Get-SmbShare \| Format-List *`	Displays detailed SMB share properties.
`Get-SmbConnection`	Checks active SMB client connections.
`Get-SmbSession`	Checks SMB sessions.
`Get-SmbOpenFile`	Checks open files through SMB.
`Set-SmbShare`	Modifies SMB share properties.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does ContinuouslyAvailable mean in SMB?

It indicates that the SMB share has the Continuous Availability property configured. In supported clustered environments, this property is part of SMB Transparent Failover functionality.

Does Windows 11 support SMB Continuous Availability?

Windows 11 can act as a supported SMB client for SMB Transparent Failover scenarios. The highly available file-server infrastructure itself requires an appropriate Windows Server failover-cluster configuration.

Is Continuous Availability the same as SMB Multichannel?

No. SMB Multichannel allows SMB to use multiple network paths or channels when supported. Continuous Availability is associated with maintaining SMB access during supported clustered file-server failover scenarios.

Is Continuous Availability the same as SMB leasing?

No. SMB leasing is associated with client caching and file or directory state. Continuous Availability is associated with clustered file-share availability and transparent failover.

Can I enable Continuous Availability on any SMB share?

The PowerShell SMB module provides a -ContinuouslyAvailable property, but enabling the property does not by itself create a complete high-availability architecture. The server, cluster, storage, and client environment must support the intended SMB failover scenario.

How do I check the Continuous Availability timeout?

Use:

Get-SmbShare |
    Select-Object Name, ContinuouslyAvailable, CATimeout

Related SMB Guides

Final Thoughts

Checking SMB Continuous Availability in Windows 11 is useful when investigating SMB shares that are part of a high-availability or clustered file-server environment. PowerShell makes it easy to inspect the ContinuouslyAvailable property and related settings such as CATimeout, AvailabilityType, and ShareState.

The most important point is that Continuous Availability is not simply a performance switch. It is part of a broader SMB Transparent Failover architecture. If you are troubleshooting a clustered SMB environment, inspect the share configuration together with the client connection, SMB dialect, sessions, open files, Multichannel, network configuration, and cluster health.

For ordinary SMB file-sharing problems on Windows 11, start with the basic network and SMB checks before changing advanced availability settings. This approach makes it easier to identify whether the problem is caused by the network, SMB configuration, permissions, the share itself, or the underlying high-availability infrastructure.