Saving to Windows Server 2003 very slow

[studio3p]

We recently "upgraded" our network from a Workgroup with a Network Attached Storage device to a domain server. There have been a few configuration things that I've been able to resolve with the new server, but I am currently stumped when it comes to the time it takes to save Revit files to the server.

When working on files saved to our local drives, or when working with offline files remotely, Revit seems to work as it did before for everyone in the office. When we are working on files located on mapped network drives we are able to open files just as quickly as we were able to before (NAS), but saving takes a long, long time. I've searched the Knowledge Bases on the Autodesk, McAfee, and Microsoft websites, but have not found anything useful.

Does anyone have any suggestions what the problem might be? And more importantly, does anyone have any suggestions about how to resolve the issue? Because saving is taking so long, everyone in the office is putting off regular saves, and that means that it's just a matter of time until we lose valuable progress between saves.

My thanks -

[mlgatzke]

According to Autodesk Support, they do not recommend working on files over a network. Their recommendation is to copy to file to a local drive, work on it there, and then save it back to the network when you are finished. I have had a couple of files destroyed while working and saving over a network (twas not a pretty sight). Also, make sure that you are not saving the file to your desktop, My Documents folder, or anything else that is stored in your user profile on the Domain. This will slow down the user's login and logout as anything in these locations are copied to and from the server with every logout and login.

[studio3p]

Is that really their position? I understand that worksets are setup that way, but having locally saved files for single-user projects seems like a very bad idea. The entire of a RAID array is thrown out the window in that scenario.

[patricks]

I agree with you there. That seems like a ridiculous recommendation from AutoDesk. I would think that nearly every A/E office in the world has some sort of centralized file server, and people always open and work out of those files on the server. The file is normally moved to the local machine's memory anyway, so it's only the saving process that's going to see any difference in response time, if any, versus working and saving to the local drive.

Not to mention, saving a file to a local machine, working on it, then saving it back makes the file on the server vulnerable to changes made by others if someone else happened to open the file while you're working on your "local" copy (not a worksets project).

Now I have experienced a bit of a different scenario at my office. We also switched to Windows Server 2003 back at the beginning of the year, and also upgraded to a gigabit network throughout the office. I noticed a bit of a slowdown when saving when I began using version 9.1, and it remains the same in 2008. A worksets file seems to do okay most of the time, I guess because it's not writing the entire file each time but only the changes each person made. However, even just a 20MB non-workset project file seems to take as much as a minute to save, even across the gigabit network. It doesn't make much sense.

[studio3p]

even just a 20MB non-workset project file seems to take as much as a minute to save, even across the gigabit network.

Are you noticing any issues with non-Revit files such as 20 MB Photoshop files? We have really only had an issue with Revit files.

[dhurtubise]

I've heard bad things about NAS in the past with Revit file.

[patricks]

Are you noticing any issues with non-Revit files such as 20 MB Photoshop files? We have really only had an issue with Revit files.

I think it's Revit related. On our old "server" (just a workstation that nobody used, peer-to-peer network), and 100MB/s network, saving seemed faster prior to 9.1 than it does now on an actual server and domain, gigabit network, and Revit 9.1 or 2008.

[studio3p]

The NAS certainly doesn't have the built-in safety of a dedicated domain server. That is the reason we changed our network configuration. We were using the NAS setup for nearly 2 years and we never had a problem with any of our files The save speed simply wasn't noticeable. The save speed has really only been noticeable with Windows Server 2003. Regarding Revit releases, we were using Revit 2008 with the NAS and everything was the way it was with previous releases.

[Wes Macaulay]

I think it's a Windows problem -- or a Windows and Revit problem. We've blown up large (>30Mb) unshared Revit projects on several occasions, and it's something we know can be a problem. Plus we note the slowdowns with large file writes over networks, even fast ones.

I do know there was a hotfix from MS to deal with the large file problem, but don't know if it's exclusively MS' problem... or an XP problem, or a SBS problem, or what.

[mlgatzke]

I know that this idea is counter-intuitive, but that's what I was told by Autodesk Support when I had a file destroyed. As a matter of fact, the file was SO destroyed that Autodesk couldn't repair the file and we had to go back to a backup file (tape backup) from a few days prior. In the conversation with the Support Technician, he said that there is a problem with Revit's error correction algorithm when saving over a network. I know, doesn't seem right, but that's what I was told. You asked . . .