Correct process of backing up a Revit Central file

[Anonymous]

We are currently on Revit Architecture 2011. Our office recently went through server upgrade. Our IT consultants migrated all the data from old server to new server. That process of copying the data made every single Central file for every project into a Local file. That inlcudes the project Central, the linked-in consultant models, and previously archived Revit projects. This is painful, and it is a big task to convert all files back to being Central files.

Any suggestions on how this could have be been handled differently? This also lead to the question that when we are backing up data, does it mean all the centrals are getting converted to Locals?

Any advice/feedback is greatly apprecaited.

[Anonymous]

I would have renamed the old server something else first, then given the new server the same name as the old one. You are right, repathing central files is a big pain.

[Anonymous]

I don't think server name is the issue here. The process of copying a Central converts it into a Local file. So the new copy ends up being a Local, regardless of name of new location.

[Anonymous]

Not true. The reason the files become locals is because Revit sees a new path on the disk. Revit sees UNC paths, which is the full file path including the server name, so a new server name creates a new path.

[Anonymous]

In other words the file path must remain 100% the same, including all folders, etc. If any of that changes, you have a local file.

[Anonymous]

Scott from Autodesk,

We met at the Autodesk booth at the National AIA Convention in New Orleans.  You promised to investigate this issue and get me a response.  I am looking forward to see what you find out.

[Anonymous]

Dude I hate to tell you this but you are looking for an answer that is not there. When you back up a Revit file to another folder it always becomes a local, because the path changed. You either detach from central while opening to make a new central at the new backup location, or you overwrite the original to bring back an earlier version if the backup is really old.

Other than that if all of your central files became locals its because the server name changed. There is nothing more complicated to it than that.

Good luck.