Hello, thanks for reading.
We are a small company with 3 seats of SolidWorks Standard. We are looking for a file storage / sharing solution in the form of a NAS device or "server". I place "server" in quotes because I know there are several types, but I won't pretend to know the difference.
A little background:
Currently we have a raid card with 4 extra drives in one of our work stations. This particular workstation has a a SSD for it's working / install drive. The raid drives are for our common files (templates, design library, standard parts, etc). The raid drives also house our completed jobs. That's about it. This set up works very well from a performance perspective, I have no complaints. Where this set up falls short for us is when this workstation needs to be rebooted mid day (software update, etc...).
We have no need for a PDM system. I have used and maintained PDMWorks in the past, the way our work flow moves we just don't need it.
What I want to gain by upgrading to a stand alone NAS or server:
Longer times between reboots (days or a week), the workstations get shut down every night.
No need for my workstation to be on while I'm out. My workstation houses the raid set up, plus Quickbooks and other more sensitive things not everyone needs to see.
Reliable file storage.
A drive that can be backed up offsite. I realize this could be any drive, but I thought I'd through it in. If anyone has a solution for a cloud back up they are happy with I'd be interested in your thoughts.
This NAS or server will be housing our design library, template, standard parts, and completed jobs (these are rarely referenced).
I Should note that our design library components are small in size, uncomplicated files normally under 1mb.
I would appreciate any suggestions you may have. Am I the only one having trouble editing a post here while using an iPad? It's an iPad Air, using the Chrome app and I can not "move my cursor" to any location in this text area other than the very first line, frustrating.
Thanks,
-Mike