Hard Disk when use C4R

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

When using C4R the minimum hard disk space as much

At present our company has many computers are using the SSD 128.

Thanks for support.

[bill_hashman]

Revit Accelerator has been restored.

1) Uninstalled Revit and other Revit applications using the Autodesk Uninstall Tool which is so much quicker than the Windows/Control Panel/Program and Features method. 

2) Deleted some other folders and fragments 

3) Rebooted system

4) Did fresh install from Downloaded application setup folder.

   > Observed the Revit Accelerator was installed along with other applications.

   > Also can see Revit Accelerator in the Autodesk applications folder

5) Ran Revit and can see that Revit Accelerator is active with internet connections when I launch a file from BIM360.  see attached screen shot.

By the way...  I noticed that the Revit Accelerator icon and application date is from 2017.  So just possibly...  when I used the Autodesk Uninstall Tool to do a mass uninstall Revit 2017 and 2018 and other older applications all at the same time, I may have seen Revit Accelerator as associated as a part of Revit 2018 or 2017 and under that parent heading in the Uninstall Tool.  Thus I could have selected all children nodes and inadvertently uninstalled Revit Accelerator as a part of Revit 2017 or 2018.  You may want to include this in your workflow testing.

thanks for your assistance!

[dbutts7]

@sasha.crotty thanks for the clarifications! I didn't think that a separate installer was required once the BIM 360 tools were built in starting with 2018, but wasn't aware that it was the same background service that was used with Revit Server. Our previous experience (prior to 2018) with was strictly with working with other consulting firms that hosted their own server - in this case, the accelerator was essential for performance. Good to know we don't have to do anything with it now - thanks again!

[jvpantin2]

Hi everybody,

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. I haven't tried the solution to repath cache files to a DATA disk, will do this soon because the same problem you pointed here. Now, I have this questions/ideas: if is that possible to repath cache files to another disk can it be done to a local server, also? If the answer is yes, how do this in a way that improves the performance or without filling all the disks? Made by this way, files will function as a common cache file for a team working model o every workstation has to create its own cache folder? I think is really concerning that Autodesk didn't catch the point about this issue, wich is creating serious trouble of performance for Revit users. For what is A360 if we need to have TB's of disk space to work?

[dan.stine]

Looks like this has been resolved... I wrote about it on my blog, BIM Chapters: https://bimchapters.blogspot.com/2019/07/autodesk-desktop-connector-update.html

[dan.stine]

False alarm... turns out this is just for the install location of DC, not the local cache files. Sorry:(

[adrian.esdaile]

Revit Accelerator pre-fetches from BIM360?

That's news to me!  It seems to do nothing whatsoever; we have very long sync times, and running diagnostics on PACR show that it take 0% processor time, and 0% network load -even when we know other users of BIM360 have synced.

We've even had Autodesk techs say this is "as designed" and that being in Australia is the reason why we get poor performance. With all of our data stored east-coast US I'm not surprised. Why there is no local Asia-Pacific BIM360 server is utterly beyond belief considering how much it costs.

I can provide support ticket numbers if required!

[jvpantin2]

After working on this issue for serveral months, and dealing with the lack of space (or worst, the waste of time when tried to downgrade to an old HDD) and realizing there is no way to change BIM360/C4R file & backup sistem, wich creates 3 copies of the main file and all external links and families (located in a Revit collaboration cache folder, a local temp and windows temp folder at the same time, this last one works as mirror of RAM). Wich means that we always have three copies of all our C4R models, wich also means we use 3X more disk space than we supossed to. We can say Autodesk is overprotecting our data, but the fact is that we have to pay for that by increasing our HDD space and speed.

In my experience, the only way to solve this is:

1- Install an SSD over 500GB (don't go back to old HDD because you will lose in speed what you gain on space and is worse). We had before 128GB disks 

2- Change journal file cleanup and worksharing update frequency settings in Revit (I put them at minimum assuming that actually have 3 copies updating every time I synchronize, plus BIM360 cloud files plus other users backup,

3- If you need more space, improve RAM performance or only want to keep your disks clean, can also eliminate windows page file. It is a more personal choice, in my case I prefer to crash for a lack of RAM space (which don't have to ocurr because we have to have a decent RAM capactiy in order to work Revit) than wait for write extra memory on my disk.

We have been working this way with no incidents, and also enhanced those PC's with old HDD onboard. I hope this will, even though late, be useful for the community.

[sasha.crotty]

@adrian.esdaile , yes the Personal Accelerator pre-fetches from Amazon Cloud Front. The closest Edge Cache location to you is in Sydney. That way you don't have to download from the US. If you're not seeing anything happening with the Personal Accelerator then it's possible it's somehow being blocked by your system/firewall.

It may be worth double checking that the domain exceptions mentioned here are accessible:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/C...

In general, we actually see pretty fast sync times from the APAC region. Therefore it's worth investigating what exactly is causing long sync times for your projects. It's quite possible that the delay has little to do with the actual data transfer, but rather the model update that has to happen based on changes made by others working on the project. An easy way to check this is to first do a reload latest and then a sync. Assuming no one has snuck in a sync in between, then the sync time in this case will be reflective of the actual data transfer time.

[sasha.crotty]

@jvpantin2 thanks for sharing and sorry that you have to go through this effort to manage disk space.

Just FYI, Revit 2020.2 contains an improvement which should eliminate the data backups that are stored by Revit in the collaboration cache. The improvement will not clear out existing data, but will reduce the size of the cache needed by projects.

[jvpantin2]

Hi @sasha.crotty, you're welcome! Thank to these efforts we master Revit, troubleshoots are our trials. We could no complaint about anything that keep our work safe, if how Autodesk did it is not lightweight at all, we can say it is at least wisely prudent, and we knew it would be solved in a better way. About this issue, all remember that four different process take place when synchronizing a C4R model: save to local (wich means copy models and backups on your HDD), reload latest (receive data via BIM360/WAN/LAN), save to central (transmit data to LAN/WAN/BIM360) and save to local again. There is no shorter, faster or easier command line wich can both keep models safe and correctly update central and local models. Those process implies heavy use of RAM, disk speed and capacity, network and ISP bandwidth and speed, etc. In our case what was going wrong was disk space (not speed) and ISP speed, both were improved with satisfying results.

[adrian.esdaile]

---

@sasha.crotty wrote:

@adrian.esdaile , yes the Personal Accelerator pre-fetches from Amazon Cloud Front. The closest Edge Cache location to you is in Sydney. That way you don't have to download from the US. If you're not seeing anything happening with the Personal Accelerator then it's possible it's somehow being blocked by your system/firewall.

It may be worth double checking that the domain exceptions mentioned here are accessible:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/C...

In general, we actually see pretty fast sync times from the APAC region. Therefore it's worth investigating what exactly is causing long sync times for your projects. It's quite possible that the delay has little to do with the actual data transfer, but rather the model update that has to happen based on changes made by others working on the project. An easy way to check this is to first do a reload latest and then a sync. Assuming no one has snuck in a sync in between, then the sync time in this case will be reflective of the actual data transfer time.

---

Hi Sasha,

Your response is very interesting, because it is the complete opposite from what the Autodesk team investigating our problem told us. They claim that our project, and indeed ALL BIM360 projects are stored on servers based in East Coast US.

The response times & download speeds they measured for our project almost exactly matched EC US speeds shown in CloudHarmony Speed tests.

They concluded that Australian internet is 'too slow' for BIM360 and that we are seeing the fastest possible speed, which is as low as dial-up modem (as low as barely 60kbps).

They said there is 'nothing Autodesk can do' to resolve our problem.

We have no filtering to any sites, no traffic shaping, no packet inspection taking place, and indeed our response times to APAC AWS servers is on the order of sub-10ms response and 90-100MBps transfer speeds. This is NOT what we are getting in BIM360! There is no pre-fetching from the Accelerator - most likely because the response time we get from EC US servers can sometimes be 5 seconds or more which probably breaks something in PACR. This is slow response reflected in Revit when editing objects, there is a very large 10-15 second lag when selecting elements - clearly the workset lock is encountering the slow response we face from US servers!

I would love to get you involved in this situation, because we are frankly extremely disappointed in both the speed of BIM360 and Autodesk's dismissive and evasive response; and our client for this project is one of APACs largest development companies; they are also very disappointed with this project which is their trial for BIM360.

[ljsYVEZY]

This article needs to be revised/ rewritten  - updated to include processes, accommodation for 2018,2019,2020 versions, when multiple versions are installed - and the correction of typo listed ParCache when it should read PacCache

[supportVJN4S]

this work for me, and I created a batch script that will work even for multiple users. I hope this helps you.

just save this file as a batch file and run it as administrator, replace 2021 & 2022 if you got another version installed.

@Anonymous off
title Moving Collaboration Cache to 2nd Drive
echo.

REM MAKE SURE RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR

echo Terminating Revit Accelerator and Revit
taskkill /f /im Revit.exe
taskkill /f /im RevitAccelerator.exe
echo.

echo Enter the 2nd Disk Drive Letter:
set /p DRV=
echo.

echo Enter the Affected Username:
set /p USRNAME=
echo.
echo Double check your entry before proceed.
set DRV
set USRNAME
start "1" "C:\Users\%USRNAME%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit"
pause
echo.
echo Creating New Revit folders
MKDIR %DRV%:\_%USRNAME%
MKDIR %DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache 
MKDIR %DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\PacCache
MKDIR %DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\Autodesk_Revit_2021
MKDIR %DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\Autodesk_Revit_2022
echo.

echo Moving Revit Files to New Folders
Robocopy /move /e "C:\Users\%USRNAME%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit 2021" "%DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\Autodesk_Revit_2021"
Robocopy /move /e "C:\Users\%USRNAME%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit 2022" "%DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\Autodesk_Revit_2022"
Robocopy /move /e "C:\Users\%USRNAME%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\PacCache" "%DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\PacCache"
echo.

echo Applying Directory Link to New Folders
cd "C:\Users\%USRNAME%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit"
mklink /D "Autodesk Revit 2021" "%DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\Autodesk_Revit_2021"
mklink /D "Autodesk Revit 2022" "%DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\Autodesk_Revit_2022"
mklink /D "PacCache" "%DRV%:\_%USRNAME%\_AutodeskCache\PacCache"
echo.

echo Restart your machine....
pause
shutdown /r /t 30

REM SOURCE: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-cloud-worksharing-forum/hard-disk-when-use-c4r/m-p/6494655?nobounce=#M2818
echo by GabFenando.com