Checking Your SMB VersionChecking Your SMB Version

Q: How can I quickly check what version of SMB is being used between my machine and the server?

A: There are now several different versions (or dialects) of the SMB protocol that were introduced with different versions of Windows:

The version of SMB used between a client and the server will be the highest dialect supported by both the client and server.

This means if a Windows 8 machine is talking to a Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 machine, it will use SMB 3.0. If a Windows 8 machine is talking to Windows Server 2008 R2, then the highest common level is SMB 2.1.

To check which dialect version you are using, run the the PowerShell cmdlet

Get-SmbConnection 

which will show the SMB connections and the dialect that is being used. Below is a sample execution.

PS C:Windowssystem32> Get-SmbConnectionServerName    ShareName     UserName     Credential   Dialect      NumOpens----------    ---------     --------     ----------   -------      --------savdal08r2    c$            SAVILLTEC... SAVILLTEC... 2.10         1savdalfs01    c$            SAVILLTEC... SAVILLTEC... 3.00         1savdalhv01    software      SAVILLTEC... SAVILLTEC... 3.00         1

Notice in this example that connections to servers savdalfs01 and savdalhv01 are using SMB version 3.0, while the connection to savdal08r2 (which is a Windows Server 2008 R2 server) uses SMB version 2.1.