Best way to do Collaborative AutoCAD?

[Anonymous]

We are a small office of about 5 people using AutoCAD Civil 3d working on a street project (our main office is in the city). Currently working through a VPN (which slows us down). Right now we copy our each street that a person is working on to our desktop to work on our files. Since sometimes there are multiple people working, it is not efficient sometimes and we sometimes loose our work. We will eventually be on a server by early next year but I am trying to find a workaround to work efficiently for all of us in the mean time.

I would like to know if anyone can give any suggestions for our project? I was thinking to buy an external hard drive and hook it up to our network and try to work that way. Is this a good temporary way to work for now? I would appreciate any advice. Thank You!

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> We are a small office of about 5 people using AutoCAD Civil 3d

Are all people working in the office or are they working at different places? It's not clear for me as on one side you write about using VPN and on the other side you are writing about an external harddrive (which imho only makes sense for that people in a local network).

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

All the people working on this project will be in one office. No one will be working on this project outside this office. Whats your advice?
Thanks for your help.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> All the people working on this project will be in one office. No one

>> will be working on this project outside this office. Whats your advice?

I then don't understand what for you are using VPN.

Install a server (must be a big system at the beginning if budget is limited, it could be a simple workstation with harddisk and backup-system installed.

I would avoid to just use a NAS as the performance is lower than the access to a harddisk on a workstation.

Hope that answers your question!

- alfred -

[Michiel.Valcke]

Since you are apparently waiting for a real server to be installed, I would also suggest that in the mean time you take 1 extra workstation that acts as a server within a Local Area Network. In case you do not have a spare workstation, you can have one workstation act as a server, but the person working on that workstation will notice a loss in performance / speed.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply.

The thing is I know management will not agree to putting a server right now because we are in the process to merge offices. So we are looking for a temporary solution. Would using a External Hard Drive from Western Digital work as well?

currently we are working wirelessly and connection to the internet wireless, but open to using a hub if necessary to go wired and work faster.

[pendean]

Management will not let you re-purpose a PC as a file server, but they are OK with you using a NAS driver or an "external" drive for the same reason?

A "file-server" is not the same thing as a "full server", it has nothing to do with pending company mergers. Do you have an actual IT person (from your company or from the other company) that can explain the different to your "management" and get approval?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Would using a External Hard Drive from Western Digital work as well?

Do you mean a NAS or an USB device you want to plugin to one of the workstations?

I would not see any of these 2 options as a solution (even not a temporary one).

A NAS has disadvantages with user-configuration and performance (try to copy 10000 small files from one folder to a second (both on the NAS), 99% of the NAS drives do that in the speed of snails.

A USB drive means one of the workstations is server too, so you have to decide if the workstation is more responsive to foreground or to background tasks ==> this decision means the one guy on that workstation is blocked or the other guys needing data from this USB-drives are blocked.

My temporary solution would be to spent a bit of money for a workstation that is now a server and later a workstation for one of your CAD-guys or any other person in your company.

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

We have an old workstation that nobody is using at the moment (has windows 7). Would you recommend to use that (or connect that to an external hard drive)? Would all our xrefs and data shortcuts work properly if we do it like this?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Would you recommend to use that (or connect that to an external hard drive)

Depends on the hardware, but that's where I would like to start.

Maybe including a network-drive if the build in harddisk is too small for the project data.

>> Would all our xrefs and data shortcuts work properly if we do it like this?

You can always map network-paths to drive-letters, and so if Z: is pointing to workstation A or workstation B is not important for the shortcuts.

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

Its my old workstation that I got a replacement for a few months ago. It has enough space for this project. I will do that and hook up a gigabit ethernet switch to all the computers to speed the file transfer rates (since we are currently wireless). Would this switch be good? https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Ethernet-Lifetime-Replacement-Unmanaged/dp/B00MPVR50A/ref=nav_custrec...

Also, can you walk me through how I would set up this workstation as a server?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Its my old workstation that I got a replacement for a few months ago

So if you were working a few months ago with Civil 3D then it should work well as "mini"-server for 5 clients.

>> hook up a gigabit ethernet switch to all the computers 

Do you already have cable's to these workstations? Otherwise I would try first with WLAN and see how it works.

Attaching now cables for an office you will not stay does not make too much sense.

>> can you walk me through how I would set up this workstation as a server

I'm not a network specialist, and this is not really a network operating system forum.

If anyone else want's to get in here ... everyone is welcome.

But I'm out as I'm not the person for networks 😉

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your response.

Can you guide me how I can setup a workstation as a server? I have never done so and I am doing this for my office to make our CAD more collaborative. 

I would appreciate your help in this. 

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

Do you have a spare Windows Server license?  That is what I would install. You could make this workstation a domain server in your company's domain. It should be connected to the main office so accounts will be replicated. You can even have the server set to replicate data using DFS.  Some of this can get a bit tricky. Do you have an IT person that could set this up for you?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[john.vellek · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

If setting up a new server is too much to deal with, perhaps you can share a drive one of your workstations or perhaps consider a cloud solution such as A360.

Please let me know where you are in this process so I can assist.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

Hi John.

Thanks for your help. So what I have done so far is set up an old computer not currently in use and shared a folder on a network for everyone to access (through a homegroup). I have mapped everyone to this shared folder (drive Q i have called and mapped it as). Today was the first day and we are currently testing it and everyone seems to like it. Everyone is also wired now(before we were wireless). So we may continue to do this.

Is this what you would recommend as a temporary solution for the next 4-5 months until we get a server?

Also, how would you recommend to keep a backup of these files and possibly versions of the files as well? Would you recommend onedrive? I am not familiar with acad360.

Your help would be much appreciated.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

It sounds like your new setup might work for a short interval. I f you start seeing any anomalous behavior  then you might have to rethink things a bit.  You definitely need to use something for backup. Here is a link to instructions on how to use the built-in backup for Windows but you might also consider a cloud backup. 

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I will look at your link and see what I can do with it. You mentioned A360 as a backup. How does that work? Does it work like dropbox?

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

AutoCAD has some online settings that will allow you to sync your files to A360 (cloud based). You can control your Online settings within Options or from the drop down where you see your sign in name at the top right.

[EDIT] I wanted to note that the Desktop A360 is to be discontinued. This means that syncing you r files automatically with this service will no longer function.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.