Hello All,
I soon will be installing PDM workgroup on the server as admin and the two engineers as users.
My concern is that it will not run fast enought over the network.
Note we are buying new machines for the engineers (3.0 quad core/ 8 gb ram/ fx 4600 grapic cards) it sa powerful kit, but the server is pretty basic. ( note will post when at work)
I know our machines will be fast enought to run it, but will the network be to slow to provide us the speed we need.
Is there anyone that could recommand ideas or there thoughts or experience of pdm work group over their network...
John
JOhn
You should benchmark your load times across the network and compare with local load times before installing PDM Works, just so you get an idea of whether it adds any additional overhead. Your new PC's will probably ship with 10/100/1000Mb network cards, and to get the max network speed, you should upgrade it to "Gigabit" speed as well. If you have older equipment, this could involve getting a new router/switch and server network card. Recently, my department installed a new server, which resulted in a noticeable increase in speed, but when we bought a new "Gigabit" switch, we saw our network speed double. Good Luck.
I know this is a reasonably old thread, but since you sort of quoted my question I thought i would extend it instead of starting a new one. I was just blasted by two other engineers for suggesting that Solidworks recommends having your working directory/PDM folder on your local "C" drive. We were having problems with assembly files pulling part files from others' working directories on the network and I made the suggestion that it is recommended that you have your working directory local. I was told by both that we have to work this way because we need corroborate with each other and the network is reliably backed up and local hard drives aren't currently. We have since found the "search paths for referenced drawings" check box under external reference options so that it is much less of a problem. But I had also thought I had read somewhere that PDM working directories should be on your local hard drive? Help! Is having working directories on the network acceptable, I was also told that other "Big" companies always work that way.
-Tim
This is what i am worried about.... I dont want to spend thousands of pounds of the company money on a package and computers if it going to be slow over the network. i give the details of the machines that will be involved .
both engineering computers are as follows( note havent purchase yet so if not faster enought or bad graphic card, please state recommandations! )
3 gHZ quad core processor (intel xeon)
win XP 64 BIT
8 gb ram
320 HD
nvidia Quadro FX 3700 (512 )
Gigabite network cards
Server (old)
WILL BE USING AS THE PDM ADMINSTRATOR(VAULT),TOOLBOX, WELDMENTS,LIBRARY, TEMPLATES WILL BE STORED FROM THIS MACHINE.
Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz Processor
wins server 2003
4 gb ram( 3 gb being used due to xp)
crap/ old graphic card ( forgot to check)
Gigabite network cards
The server is connected to a Linksys 24-Port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Switch and we are connected to that. the network cable is the standard CAT5. Should the cable going the engineering be upgraded? would that help?
PLEASE HELP !
JOHN
Strangely enough, what you are proposing to run is (for the want of a better description), a "carbon copy" of what I set up less than 6 months ago.
The XP-pro 32bit server and 2 XP-pro 64bit workstations (near identical spec to yours) are linked over a gigabit network. The time taken to load data from the vault is indistinguishable from loading files directly from ones own hard drive.
The only thing to be aware of is any bottlenecks in your comapnies existing network that will prevent you working at the gigabyte standard transmission speeds.
We used to run (without PDMW) over a NAS based network via a 10/100 switch. My local VAR was in amazment how we managed to get any sort of productivity, especially considering some of our assemblies had several hundred individual components. In hindsight, now I know what he meant.
consider making your own design libary instead
Thanks for advice
I found this information which may be of use.
Regards
Rob
everyone uses i hd on the server, which is broken into departments(iE engineering, sales, puschasing,pictures)
Also we run sage off the server . that is about it.
I dont know if engineering should their own hd on the server.?
john
Thanks fr the input.
We are currently have only engineers and for next year or so we will be just us. So if you saying you had a Carbon copy setup and you found that using it over the network hasnt any problems.... you helping putting my mind at rest.
Just a question about issing drawings. You obvious save solidworks drawigs in you vault. Do you then save PDF copy / dxf profile drawing in a folder on network for purchaser to use ?
Or is there a better way?
John
How many total users will be accessing that one server you have?
David's set-up has a server dedicated to the two engineers. Sounds like you are setting up one server for the company. Your bottleneck will be the bandwidth restriction (network and cpu hardware) from having many users going to one server.
Consider a dedicated server for engineering and letting the rest of the organization work off their own server. The rest of the organization will be using much less resource intensive applications and can be grouped together on a server.
SolidWorks (any CAD for that matter) will be the most resource intensive application you use and will want its own hardware to give you a good user experience.
As a point of reference, we have 80-90 people (4 full time SW enabled engineers), with computers everywhere at our company, and have about 10 servers for all of our various IT tasks. The server and network is not a bottleneck for our SolidWorks use over that network.
Also reconsider the computers you are buying your engineers. What Xeon are you buying, specific model numbers are important. Intel has just released their new Nehalem based Xeon cpu architecture. If you are not buying these you will be buying out-dated cpu architecture. Slower then what is now available from Intel.
Let us know, specifically, what you are getting for engineering workstations and we can help with recommendations there too.
Cheers,
Firstly, i have to say it is a bit werid getting a post from you, cos i was just checking out your machine results in the matrix table today. LOL.
Anyway i guess there is no one better to get advice about this subject.
The main thing to note is that im on a budget. Cant go over it. Its a pretty good budget. The best spec machine within our limits was the one stated above.The processor was the XEON X5450 . I was going to check if i could change it to a Core i7 EE965 after seeing your results. but wasnt sure if it cost more... I know the cost of the new chip you stated will cost to much and dont have the time scale to wait. Our engineering machines are crashing 3-6 times a day. it driving us mad. (note we have low spec machines)
Users:- 15 total (small company) 3-5 using Sage. 2 engineers using PDM . The rest working on spredsheets.internet. emails that kind of stuff.
I dont see us adding new users in the next year. I know our server in coming to the end . We havePlans to replace in one/ two years. This year is for upgrading engineers machines.
Just to give you a bit more info what size of assemblies:
our assembies WOULD be around 2000- 4000 components mark if they were all opened...LOL. Note we currently cant finish our main assemblies because hardware restriction and computer crashing etc. would the above spec machine / graphic card be good enough.
I hope this has help you help me more.lol..
Many thanks
John
Core i7 is an excellent choice. At least 3.0 Ghz.
If you go with Xeon you want to be looking at the 35xx Series Bloomfield core (single socket boards) or the 55xx Series Gainestown core (dual socket boards) cpu's. This is the newest cpu architecture from Intel. These Xeon's are built on the same Nehalem architecture that the Core i7's are built on.
This is the latest, greatest and fastest from Intel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Xeon
Lenovo, Dell and HP are all selling workstation class systems for the new Xeon cpu's. I would not go with anything less then a Xeon W3540 (2.93 Ghz) for our workstations we will be buying at my company.
I spec'ed a Lenovo ThinkStation S20 today with a Xeon W3570, 6 gigs of RAM, dual FX580 gpu's and a WD Velociraptor 74 gig hard drive, with MS Office Pro and no monitor for just under $3700 (US). This was way better in price then a similar system from Dell. I typically do not spec HP's, just a personal choice on my part, but they also offer similar systems and should be given consideration.
A bit more in your budget for computers will give you a system that will last longer in your engineering dept before needing to get cycled to other users in the company. What you have spec'ed now is already behind the curve on CPU/GPU performance by at least a year. Which is a huge amount of time when talking computer performance.
Also you want to spec Vista x64, XP x64 is an orphan OS. You will be able to get approved video drivers for the workstations with the new Intel cpu's and the new series of Nvidia/ATI gpu's for SW2009 and beyond.
Be sure to spend some time on the SW website looking at approved computer/video card combo's. The new workstations from HP, Dell and Lenovo already have approved drivers for SW. Older hardware may not for SW2009.
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/s...videocardtesting.html
You do not want to buy systems that you can't get approved gpu driver for to work with SW.
Just some thoughts for you as you are making your hardware decisions.
Cheers,
What do you currently have for engineering workstations? Be specific with model numbers.
A good choice may be a Dell T3400 with a 3.33 Ghz Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale core cpu.
You can spec these with Vista x64 OS. Be sure to select the OS first over in the left sidebar on the Dell website. Then pick the T3400 from the list.
If you do not do a lot of rendering or FEA this would be a good system that while not the latest and greatest will be as fast or faster then the Xeon X5450 you currently have spec'ed.
This will keep you in budget is suspect. May even allow you to get a dedicated server for engineering too.
Cheers,
here is the spec of the machine i got quoted:-
Any recommandations:?
Midi Tower Case
800w PSU
Intel Q9650 CPU
8GB Corsair Memory
Multi Format Card Reader
320GB Hard Disk
Sony/NEC DVDRW
nVidia Quadro FX3700
vista Ulimate 64 bit
john
Who is quoting you these workstations and what are they charging you for them? Are these from an OEM or are they homebuilt?
What are the spec's of the current hardware your engineers are using, not the new stuff. What do you have now on their desks?
Can you get video card drivers from the SW website for the version of SW you are using, the OS, and the manufacture of the workstation and video card?
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/s...videocardtesting.html
The hardware looks adequate, it is a generation old now that the new stuff has been released from Intel and Nvidia this past few weeks. But that may work well for you if the price is right for the systems.
Cheers,