Hello all,
I have been asked by our IT department to move all my Inventor files (.iam, .idw, .dwg, .ipt, .ipn, .ide) from the local location on my PC to a location on our server to automate backup procedures and decrease the size of weekly backups. Is there a procedure or preferred way to move these files? I know I will need to revise the project paths for libraries, etc,, just wondering if there is anything else I should consider before moving them?
Thanks,
PE - CTEN
How many files are we talking?
You could pack and go them to the new location.
If you were to use the pack and go on the top level assemblies would that take care of the bulk of the files?
This would be a method that would keep the files linked.
I can do it that way if necessary, the problem is that I have hundreds of large assebly files to move. Hoping to find a simple way of doing this all at once.
PE - CTEN
Hi estberg,
Most likely Cadmanto's suggestion to use Pack and Go is the best way to go.
However, you can sometimes save yourself some work by just setting up the new destination path to mimiic the source path, and then just copy everything over.
Be sure to COPY not MOVE the files, and then be sure to test everything to make sure all is well before removing the old files (maybe wait a couple of weeks).
If you provide some information on the file paths, we might be able to provide a more specific suggestion.
Example
the existing Project file path is:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\Inventor Files\InventorMasterProject.ipj
new path will be:
J:\Engineering\Inventor Files\InventorMasterProject.ipj
Also, if you use Pack and Go to copy the files, you can just select the Project file, and it'll gather up all of the files under it. This assumes of course that you've been using a single project file and all of your files are found under it.
If you don't have a single master project file, then you might be able to create one and configure it to "see" all of your files, without too much effort. Again provide some details and we can give some specifics.
I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com
Thanks for the quick replies. I'll look at these options and get back to you if I need more help.
Thanks again!
PE - CTEN
How many project files are you working with in that 27 GB? Do they refer to explicit file paths, or only to relative file paths? The reason I ask is that in our case, we have thousands of project files in our ten years worth of Inventor work, but it would not be any problem to move them all to a different location, since all projects are self-contained and refer to paths only relative to themselves. If that's the way yours are configured, you will have a pretty easy time. Otherwise, it gets more complicated.
Then all you need to do is move all the files to their new location and alter that one project file to point to any new paths (for libraries, design data, templates, content libraries, etc.)
If the files were in vault it would have helped to move them easily.
Anyways since you say its off 1 project file, then simply move the whole folder of the files to new location and modify the project file to replace the old folder location with the new folder location.
C1
Would now be the time to reccomend adding Vault, even the base free version? It will cost a little to have vault configured but the auto uploader can then be used.