I don't think this means you have to sacrifice stat. Let's see what docs has to say:
If this variable is set to a true value, then stat() on Windows will not try to open the file. This means that the link count cannot be determined and file attributes may be out of date if additional hardlinks to the file exist. On the other hand, not opening the file is considerably faster, especially for files on network drives.
See what I mean?
I don't know what is stored on that shared drive. Does this seem to be a problem?