In Windows, when you have connected to a share, as with a mapped drive letter, that share shows as Active. At some point, if the client cannot communicate with the open session to a SMB/CIFS server the drive will appear to the Windows client as OFFLINE. AFP does something similar, but the result is a constant communication with the AFP server (at least constant as it is perceived from the Finder). While this communication may appear to be constant it is actually verified by the server every 30 seconds, and the AFP client software, if no poll is sent from the server, the client will also attempt to reach out…