Hello,
We are having a server installed tomorrow, any recommendations? 1 user here of solidworks.
I have the option of leaving all my solidworks files on my PC, is this a good idea? Will it be quicker if I move them to the server? From searching this forum I get the impression I will be better off leaving them on my computer and working locally, and only save the pdf's to the server. No one else in the company needs to acsess my solidworks file.
Thanks in advance.
SolidWorks will work faster if you open files from your local hard drive. However you should have a backup plan to backup your SolidWorks files in case of a hard drive failure on your computer.
Thats what I thought, I could just get a backup to run so my files are backed up to the server.
If you work for a company then you really should have your files saved on the server all the time. I know you really want to make sure your files get backed up to the server, however more times than not it does not happen for one reason or another. Then there is the issue of version after version of your folder trees getting backed up and out of sync. Sorry, but it happens all the time.
You don't have to spend more than a couple of grand on a new server to get something that will allow a lot of users to run SW at once. We have a Lenovo RD240 server with a single Quad Core XEON with a RAID 5 array (3 TB) shared and we have 200 users (10 are all day SW users) and there is not a noticable difference from running files off this server vs the local disk.
If your company gets the right equipment you run your files off the server and have a nice neat folder structure that is always up to date. You will save more time and money in a very short amount of time.
I've moved all of our SW data to local directories and I have Microsoft's Synchtoy (free) set to synchronize the network directories three times a day so other users can access the latest data, It seems to work flawlessly.
All of our users store and work on their files directly off the network. We've been doing this for 10+ years.
This doesn't mean there weren't problems.
Our server got wonky a few times due to hard drives failing in the RAID. In the end I think it was due to a bad RAID card. This caused unbelieveably slow network tranfers, which caused all kinds of crashes/holdups/headaches.
Also, I HIGHLY recommend you run all your workstations and server/switches thru gigabit. It made a big difference here.
Just make sure to keep your server healthy and happy and BACKED UP, you'll be fine.
When all is optimized with gigabit, fast server transfers, etc there isn't a huge difference in opening speed. Yes, hard drive is faster but a good quick network setup is fast enough not to be a bottleneck.
SolidWorks will work faster if you open files from your local hard drive. However you should have a backup plan to backup your SolidWorks files in case of a hard drive failure on your computer.