Autodesk Desktop Connector | Option to select specific projects to sync

[N.Oomen]

Hello All,

First of all, Desktop Connector is a awesome start for solving the decentralized files used as linked files.

I do have challenge with my harddrive space, because I can't select my own projects that I actively work on.

Right now Desktop Connector sync's all projects that I am connected to in BIM360 Team.

It would be really cool to get a feature that will give me the opportunity to select projects that I would like to sync.

Similar to Microsoft OneDrive, google drive or pretty much any drive.

Please help me to get this idea to become a feature.

If my post answers your wish also, please click the "Vote" button. This helps everyone to get this feature in more quickly.

[Anonymous]

From what I have evaluated so far, I think while the Connected BIM360 Team Drive shows all the Hubs and Projects as structured folders/files, it will not cache an actual file down to your machine until you somehow start using that specific file on your machine. The reason is that as soon as I installed the Desktop Connector, all the file/folder structure was available immediately, buy my C drive used space did not change much and I am member of lots of projects with large files. I could be wrong, but this is my finding so far. 

[mikel_martin]

You are correct. Desktop Connector is not a sync tool. It is a virtual file system. a file is not downloaded to your computer until it is opened/read by some application. Once opened it is cached locally.

Hope that helps.

[K-Vaughn]

I don't see the files in the project folders on my team page in chrome but they are in the project files on my computer. How do I get them to show up in the browser page? *ie sync it to be viewed through the project list

[N.Oomen]

@Anonymous,

Thank you for your findings, That seems to be the case, but I would still like to be able to select projects, because more then 70% of the projects is actually a project where I have access to but not really actively work in.

Also the Fusion drive is not in use, so I would like to be able to deactivate certain folders.

@mikel_martin,

It is hard to see it as a virtual file system if it is not mentioned on any news or platform. Autodesk is putting it to market as a "Drive", which I assume associates to other party's that use the word "Drive" and in that case those are actually sync tools.

But thanks for the clarification.

[Anonymous]

@mikel_martin Can you provide more information on this? Like is there a limit of size that will be cached? Do documents get uncached after a while?

I'm looking to access 5+ TB of data on a series of computer with only 100 GB of free space for this. A guide would be helpful.

[mikel_martin]

If you access an environment with 5+ TB none of that data will be cached on your hard drive until you open some files. When you open a file only that file and any required references will be downloaded and cached. If changes are made to those file by someone else, they will not be updated in your cache until you open them again.

There is no Auto-cleanup of the cache right now. However this is in our road map.

Currently if you have a need to clear the cache you would need to go into offline mode. In this mode you can delete local copies of the file.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Mikel! This clarifies a lot of things for our IT strategy. I can't wait till the auto-clean feature is out and the product keeps evolving 🙂

[Chad-Smith]

I'm giving this idea a vote because of a few reasons:

1. I don't like the way that it is treated as a virtual file system. With remote data, I like to specifically control which folder/files to sync. All other data I don't care about and therefore I don't want to see.
2. At the moment I would like to un-cache. Although I understand that this is coming.
3. Where to the deleted files go? Because this is not treated like a normal file system, accidentally deleted files are irretrievable. They do not land in the Recycle Bin. I think this one is quite dangerous.

[wim_de_winter]

Autodesk Desktop Connector show also the inactive projects. It will be nice if only the active projects are visible on the Autodesk Desktop Connector