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Local Files

scotthardin
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Local Files

scotthardin
Participant
Participant

Where is the best place to save local files?  I work in a firm of roughly 55 Revit users. The previous BIM manager to me wrote an install script that defined all local files saved to his redirected documents drive. Before him we used users' local documents folder as the default path. My question is what is the advantage to a whole company saving local files to a redirected drive? Is this merely to save space on individual machines?

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RDAOU
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@scotthardin 

 

What are those local files you are refering to? In a worksharing environment, apart from installation files, almost everything is considered central and non-local. Unless you are using Revit as a substitute for a conventional CAD software all files should be routed as your previous BIM Manager described. 

 

Using a network drive for Revit files is particularly advantageous in collaborative environments, where centralized storage and access control are critical. However, it's essential to ensure the network infrastructure is robust to prevent performance issues, especially for large files. An equally good yet more practical and economic option would be a cloud storage. 

 

Some of the advantages which both network & cloud drives have over working locally (just header you can research each further if you will be taking over the tasks of the previous manager)

 

  1. Collaboration and Accessibility (Worksharing)
    • Multi-user Access 
    • Centralized Storage
  2. Backup and Recovery
    • Regular Backups
    • Disaster Recovery
  3. File Management and Organization
    • Version Control
    • Access Permissions
  4. Data Security
    • Controlled Access
    • Audit Trails
  5. Performance for Large Teams
    • Reduced Duplication
    • Optimized Network Usage
  6. Scalability
    • Easy Expansion
  7. Remote Access (if needed)

 

 

 

YOUTUBE | BIM | COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN | PARAMETRIC DESIGN | GENERATIVE DESIGN | VISUAL PROGRAMMING
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Simon_Weel
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As the name suggest, local files should be stored local for best performance. These are the files you actually work with. If low on local storage, I would install a extra drive.

scotthardin
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Participant

I'm referring to the local Revit model as opposed to the central Revit model stored in the Autodesk Construction Cloud.  All our users documents are backed up on our local servers so I'm confused as to why the Revit files were all directed to the documents folder of only one user rather than each user.  It could be that the install script used to update all the computers in the office simply defined this one location since it was run for everyone.  What I need to know is whether this was a symptom of the way Revit was installed on all our machines (definition in a batch install file) or if it was intentional. 

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RDAOU
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@scotthardin 

 

Not sure what you mean by User Documents though...this could mean a wide spectrum of data or information, 

 

  • the local copy of the central can reside on the local workstation of the user. 
  • Central Models, Material Libraries, Material Assets, Families, cataloges, lookup table, templates ...etc All go on the server or cloud (Not on another User)
  • Non-workshared models, for backup purposes, security, access control and such I would recomend to centralize as well. In terms of speed and performance, users within the same network will not notice the defference between local or server (regardless if it is a file server or a revit server)

If by install script you mean the Deployments; then yes. They are pushed from the server to all 50 users. If he would carry out the installations and updates one by one locally, he would need a month to finish. However, this does not limit the saved paths on all machines to one location for everyone. Each workstation can have its own .ini 

 

It could be that he missed out the part of replacing all .ini for local users and it could be intentional. BIM Managers usually defin that in the Data Management plan or the BIM Implementation Plan. "What goes where and who can access what"

 

If now the BIM Manager is gone and you wish to make it all local, make it local as mr Weel suggested but then you need to consider how to manage it al... install the content libraries on 50 machines one by one ? every time a family, a model or anything gets updated one goes around and update it on all 50 workstations? everytime someone adds a shared parameter you email it to everyone?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOUTUBE | BIM | COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN | PARAMETRIC DESIGN | GENERATIVE DESIGN | VISUAL PROGRAMMING
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scotthardin
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Participant

By user documents I meant the documents folder on the individual's machines.  These all get backed up to our company server as well so even though they are local on the machine, they are also accessible by admin via our network.  

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RDAOU
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@scotthardin 

 

 

Is the local drive you are referring to a physical drive on your workstation or a virtual local drive assigned to you on the server? IMO The latter is acceptable and  the former is not recommended.

 

As mentioned in the previous reply, the "Documents" folder is a vague term, what is stored there in? Users are able to dump anything therein or is it a dedicated folder for specific type of data. Not being able what type of data is being saved into those local files makes it hard to decide whether they should on the user's workstation or the Server/Cloud

 

Moreover, even if your company has a nightly backup of all local drives on user machines, data loss can still occur for countless reasons. How reliable is this backup process and at what frequency do they carry it out? What happens when users shut down their computers at the end of the day, are out of the office, or if files are needed from someone else's drive? or when you are in Home office? Duplicating data and files from one drive to the next is not the best practice either.

 

Nonetheless, ff you believe this approach makes your life easier and you will be the one taking responsibility for handling these matters, you can proceed with changing the paths to point to local drives. However, I strongly recommend consulting with your IT/Network administrators to avoid potential issues or conflicts

 

 

 

 

YOUTUBE | BIM | COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN | PARAMETRIC DESIGN | GENERATIVE DESIGN | VISUAL PROGRAMMING
If you find this reply helpful kindly hit the LIKE BUTTON and if applicable please ACCEPT AS SOLUTION


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SteveKStafford
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Local Files are not meant to be long lasting. They are just our means to work on the project. Once you've sync'd you could just delete the local file and Revit will just make another local file the next time you open the central file.

 

As such Local Files should be located on your PC. FWIW, if you use Autodesk's cloud service ACC that's where the project's cached files goes too.

 

Placing local files on a network can expose any weakness of that connection while working on that "externally" hosted local file. Hosting a local file on an external resource in your network isn't necessarily bad either, it just means you may occasionally pay a penalty for losing that connection or suffering through poor performance until the network admin determines that the server needs a restart. The central file is the important file that needs to be on the network resource so everyone can access it. The local files are not.

 

I've been able to get a project back on line a few times when a major server failure occurred. We took the newest local file from a user (stored on their local PC) and recreated the central file on a different server. Our team was back to work while everyone else (in CAD) was down for about a day, until the computer team could get the server back up. So in that sense local files on the local PC is a form of redundancy that can be taken advantage of in extreme circumstances.


Steve Stafford
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