Inventor 2011 performance hit

[ceasupport]

About 6 months ago we set up a Windows 7 64-bit PC with Autodesk Inventor 2011. It worked flawlessly, the users were quite pleased with the performance as we purchased them a high end PC.

A month ago, we switched all Windows 7 users over to roaming profiles and a redirected application data folder, so now instead of having a local %appdata% they have a network location where it all goes to.

At this time, we noticed a huge performance hit in almost all aspects of running the program.

Surely we cant be the only company who redirects the %appdata% to a network location and have enabled roaming profiles. Is there a article or guide on how to set up Inventor 2011 and soon 2012 to function best when in that type of environment? Or does anyone have any suggestions for increasing performance? We are really trying to avoid setting these couple users back to local profiles and a non redirected application data folder, as then their settings and what not will not follow them around when they go to other PCs in the company.

Appreciate any help you can give!

[mcgyvr · Accepted solution]

I'd start looking at network/server performance issues/bottlenecks or incorrect project file setup. We use roaming profiles and have no issues with Inventor related to it.Obviously a network will not be as fast as working locally but it should be close.

There is lots of good information in this link that might help with your network problems.

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2012/Help/0073-Autodesk73/0460-Assembli460/Work_with_Large...

[ceasupport]

Well, the actual network connection is decent but the bandwidth is poor, I think it's 6mb/s but I'm not totally sure on that.

This is a remote power plant and we have a microwave shot over to it for the network connection, it isnt as if it runs off a fiber channel like at our local locations.

Long story short, the connection isnt spotty (like no lost packets, it is reliable but it's just slow) so I wouldnt think that would effect performance. In my mind, it should effect the initial start of the program but once it's running I wouldnt think it would have issues.

That link you provided does seem to be helpful, it's given me some things to try.

[SBix26 · Accepted solution]

Network speed is critical, in my experience.  At work we have all Gb network, and Inventor runs great with all files other than the actual application residing on the network.  However, when I VPN in from home (or anywhere else, for that matter), Inventor slows to a crawl.  It's worst at home where I have a basic DSL connection.  Inventor is constantly accessing files over the network, but with our fast network in the office, we don't even notice.

If I really need to work on Inventor away from the company network, I copy everything local in order to get anything done (Design Data, templates, etc).

[ceasupport]

I appreciate the feedback and that is indeed what the link posted a couple posts back is telling me. Move everything local.

Now, I just install/support Inventor, I dont actually get to use it at all... so clue me in please. Is there a way to move everything local easily? Or some sort of tool to run on a daily basis to sync up?

Our basic setup is the program resides on the PC, everything is installed local.

The inventor projects are all stored on the network across the slow connection... basically they store to their Documents folder which has been redirected through group policy to a network location. So to them it looks like a local save but in actuality it's going out onto a server.

This provides us with a hourly incremental backup of all work, which is great and in most cases doesnt effect performance at all but obviously with Inventor it's causing issues. So can I change some setting in Inventor to make all things involved in projects be in a local folder? I cant simply redirect the Documents folder, I'll need a new folder and to tell Inventor to start using that. And then do I need to convert existing projects somehow to tell them to start pointing to the new location?

[blair]

I use ViceVersa to sync my files onto USB external drive for use at home. It will sync files over a network as well.