Hello all,

I have a few questions about the Rebuild/Save Mark feature in SolidWorks which I would like to get your opinions on.

Firstly we have an EPDM database of standard parts/fasteners and there are a few of them that have 100+ configurations. Currently the parts are saved with no configurations generated meaning that a "-" is shown instead of a green tick, meaning that the filesize is low and saving and editing them is quick.

What I would like to know is that is it worth using the Add Rebuild/Save Mark for all Configurations and what are the benefits and/or drawbacks to doing this?

What I presume with our current situation is that a top level assembly with lots of fasteners in it has to rebuild the fasteners for each config is used which I presume takes time but the memory used is no bigger than it needs to be? (correct me if I am wrong). The only problem is that because the fasteners have had a config rebuilt we find that upon closing the assembly they keeping asking to be saved but can't because they are read only.

With Rebuilding/Saving all configurations of the fastener the file size is massive but when used in an assembly they don't have to be rebuilt. The process of not having to rebuild the fastener should be faster I presume but does the large filesize of the fastener in the first place cause more problems than rebuilding the config when needed?

In short what do you do with your fasteners that have 100s of configs, save/rebuild all or leave to be rebuilt when needed? and what are the benefits.

Hopefully that all makes sense,

Thanks,

Matt