Hi All
I have question relating to the best practice way of handling standard parts.
I have been using EPDM for about 3 years now and have been building up a collection of standard parts. This includes nuts, bolts, bearings etc that get referenced into many different projects.
It only occurred to me recently that each time one of these parts is referenced into an assembly, another "Where Used" record has to be added to the database.
Over time I can imagine that this must bloat the database significantly and I would presume would impact on performance.
So the question is, is it better to create a uniquely named version of the part (you could end having hundreds of files of an M6 nut for example) or to accept that the "M6" nut may have hundreds of "Where Used" references.
The other option I have considered is virtualising all standard parts in an assembly. Are there any downsides to this approach?
Thanks
John
It's not better to create a new part. Don't worry about the new records. As long as your maintaining your indexes on the database, you won't see a performance hit. This is what a database is built for.
Besides, new part or old part, it's the same amount of rows/records for the reference.