BIMcloud and storing projects on network drives

[Nik]

Hi all. We currently use BIMcloud Basic, installed on a dedicated Mac Mini. However things are currently set up so that Teamwork project data is actually stored on a networked drive via a different Mac Mini. This other Mac is also used as our mail server and general file server.

This doesn't seem like a great setup to me, because when the networked drive/Mac goes down then BIMcloud stops working. When this happens BIMcloud tries to save project data locally, which really messes things up.

I'd be very interested to hear how other people set up their server and project data storage.

Cheers, Nik

[Lee Hankins]

We had a set up in the past where the data was stored separately. It caused us a massive issue where due to an update to the macOS the connected drives took longer to mount. this resulted in the BIMcloud starting before the drive had mounted. BIMcloud couldn't find the data and then created a whole new folder with the same name locally. When we connected to open a Teamwork project the list was blank even though it appeared to work. I thought we had lost everything. the backup also hadn't been working and we hadn't realised. Luckily GSHQ worked out the issue and re-linked the data. We now keep all BIMcloud data locally to the machine which runs BIMcloud. We then use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup all the BIMcloud data to our Synology NAS overnight which then backs up off-site. Graphisoft recommended workflow is to definitely not store the data away from the machine running BIMcloud. We currently use a Mac Pro (previous gen) and it works brilliantly.

[Nik]

Thanks Lee. We've had similar situations. If the network drive disconnects unexpectedly then BIMcloud gets confused, creates a folder with the same name in the /Volumes directory and starts using that instead. This can cause all kinds of problems, including potential data loss. It took us ages to work out was happening. Keeping the data locally does seem like a more robust solution.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Yes, BIMcloud and the Teamwork data it uses should be definitely on the same computer dedicated to BIMcloud. BIMcloud's operation is very hard disk intensive so you would not want to slow it down by storing those files on another computer so BIMcloud has to communicate with it through the LAN to read/write Teamwork project file data.