How many backup files do people use?

[brentcarlson892079]

The default is 3. I am set for 10...but since i'm saving it over our network, it seems to take too long to save. So, i'm thinking of using a lower number.

How many do others use?

[jbalding48677]

Generally speaking -

1 for family files (used to be 0 when that was allowed)
3 for single user projects
5+ for workset projects

[blads]

5 - it seemed like a good number and I'm not on a network

[beegee]

If space is your consideration, it is relative to using single or workset files.
A single 5 Mb file with 3 backups will take 15 Mb.

In a workset environment, I think the rule of thumb is one backup per user plus one . So for 2 users you should have 3 backups. But in a workset environment, Revit only copies those worksets that have changed, so 3 backups of a 5Mb file will take much less than 15 Mb ( depending on which worksets have changed )

Just to complicate the discussion, Revit saves all versions of each workset in one folder for that workset. (If a workset changes 3 times among the 4 backups there'll be 3 files in that folder.)

[sbrown]

beegee, I have no idea whats wrong with my worksets backups if you are correct with your numbers, my worksets backups can total in the gig range for a 30mb file with 5 users.

[jbalding48677]

Correct me if I am wrong but the workset backups are not full backups and that is why a 30 mb file with 5 users is not a gig, per Scott's example.

[PeterJ]

Sounds like you need to look at how your people are using those worksets, Scott, and howmany backups are set.

I have a funny feeling that the default backup number is set quite high for worksets, depending on what template you start with. I seem to remember one project being set to 20, so if you have users checking out large parts of the mode, say up to 10 or 15 MB of information, then you might have 10 MB x 5 users x 20 backups which gets you up to that Gigabyte of backup very quickly.