Average Revit Sync to Central Time Frame

[jwalker.205712]

I know this is a very hard question to answer without the correct varriables. I'm not looking for specifics, just a general time frame.

What are people seeing the average sync to central times are for a central file around 200MB?


Here are some specifics on our situation. What would you say is a normal sync with Central time frame.

- Revit Arch 2012
- 200MB ARCH Central File
- linked with 200MB MEP Central File
- ~4 people per central file
- 1st Gen i7 2.6Ghz Workstation w/ 6GB mem w/ 500GB 7200rpm drive
- Gig network
- Server is using SAN storage

We have about a 5-7 minute sync to central.

Thank you!

[david_peterson]

I would re-create your local file and you may want to try to compact your central.
5-7 min seems long for the specs you're giving.
Of course the big issue for you is lack of Ram.
With that size file, I'm surprised you haven't run out of memory.

[antman]

I'll echo the RAM comment. Take a look at the Performance tab in Windows Task Manager while synchronizing. That might give you a clue. If that turns out to not be the issue... I wonder if the network is your bottleneck. Is it any faster if there is only one person accessing the central file? Do you have lag spikes throughout the day, just in the middle of working (that is, Revit stops responding for any amount of time - I've seen 15 seconds to 3 minutes)? If you do have lag spikes, do they happen at the exact same interval as the other users, regardless of whether they are in the same project?

[david_peterson]

One thing we've done in the past when things were getting a little wacky with network latency was to put a "sniffer" on your computer network connection and see what it's actually doing by checking what packets are being sent. We ran into a problem in the past with our network licenses (because they were in more than one office and set up to share them company wide) where revit got confused as to where it should pull from. So I was pulling a license from 7 states away. One thing you may or may not know is that any time you touch and object, open a view, try to modify anything or save, revit needs to verify your license. I don't think that's your issue but it's something to think about for future.
We've also had it for some reason start to ping Adesk's website about 1000 times a sec in a loop. Not sure why, but it was doing it for a while. I'm not sure what our IT guys found out.
But to answer the main point of your question, yes that seems long. But the amount of Ram could be a cause. You need 20xfiles of free Ram to run revit as recommended.

[bbeck]

Your Sync times are a bit long. As I type, we have a project that is just over 1.4Gig including all links with 12 people active in the model. I opened up the history in worksharing monitor and we average just over 3min on our SWC's for today.

[jwalker.205712]

Thank you guys for the replies and the suggestions! It helps just knowing the sync process is little longer than it should be.

Transfer of files on the network appears to be working well. We don't have expensive Gig switches, but at least they are gig.

I will try to get some ram added to one of the machines and test its performance as well.

[david_peterson]

I guess I'll show some stupidity here and ask "What's an expensive Gig Switch"?
Are yo saying that you have the ability to run Gig, but aren't using a gig switch on the network for box to server transfer? If that's the case, then there's your weak point. I guess I'm really confused by that statement.
I always figured that if you have a gig network you're running a gig switch and that gig switch either runs at Gig speed or it doesn't.

[sbrown]

The big question is how often are you saving? Also check your save settings, by default you are saving your local first, then saving to central, then saving your local a second time. Safe but I've found the STC actually fairly quick, but the local saves extra long. Try unchecking the box. Also I click STC very often, this makes the times very quick. If you wait and save a lunch and end of day, it can take a long time.

[jwalker.205712]

They are some $300 3com, layer 2, 4 year old switches. We definitively get Gig speeds off the switches though.

That's why I figured the network wasn't the issue, unless someone/something is saturating the network.