Server for Revit and CAD

bigmaz2000

bigmaz2000

bigmaz2000

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Joined
17 Apr 2012
Posts
102
Hi guys

My business is growing fast. Sharepoint has been awesome, syncing Onedrive folders. But it is not a great solution for multiple users. Especially using Autodesk Revit. So I need a network solution so all my guys can access and work on project files. And map to it through File Explorer. Can someone suggest a good solution for this? I will connect it to my home network, I have 1Gbps Up/Down connection, so shouldn't be bottlenecked server end. I was looking at NAS boxes. Thinking about building my own server, I build all my own PCs, but I think i'd struggle with server software, so not keen on that.

I don't want to spend anymore than £1k.
 
Are the users working locally or are they remote?

If remote, do you not think you are putting a fair bit of faith in your own home network, power supply and so on being completely reliable or your business grinds to a hault.
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
Ok, what are the main issues you are having with the current setup?
Click to expand...

The main thing is, worksharing Revit models does not work. And in general, you cannot control people opening and saving the same documents. Without other third party solutions, which is a route I do not want to go down. So we need a central server to map to.
 
bigmaz2000 said:
The main thing is, worksharing Revit models does not work. And in general, you cannot control people opening and saving the same documents. Without other third party solutions, which is a route I do not want to go down. So we need a central server to map to.
Click to expand...
Ok, so this is purely just for file hosting, all the heavy lifting is done on the users workstation and this is just for storage/backup etc?

What sort of storage do you need?

You can do this in a few different ways, depends how technical you want to get.

You could rack a server in your house, utilise a VPN solution so each user VPN's into your network and can access the server that way. You are at the mercy of your internet and power being interrupted, how much would this affect your business?
To mitigate this you could certainly have the server nightly backup to your exisiting onedrive solution which could act as a failover solution if anything happened to your server if that would work.

Alternatively you could go for a hosted VPS option, can get costly but you do get the reliability and support etc.
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
Ok, so this is purely just for file hosting, all the heavy lifting is done on the users workstation and this is just for storage/backup etc?

What sort of storage do you need?

You can do this in a few different ways, depends how technical you want to get.

You could rack a server in your house, utilise a VPN solution so each user VPN's into your network and can access the server that way. You are at the mercy of your internet and power being interrupted, how much would this affect your business?
To mitigate this you could certainly have the server nightly backup to your exisiting onedrive solution which could act as a failover solution if anything happened to your server if that would work.

Alternatively you could go for a hosted VPS option, can get costly but you do get the reliability and support etc.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. That's the solutions i'm looking at yes. As I said in my original post, i'm happy building PCs, so I could build my own DIY server, but i'd rather get something pre installed, as server software isn't something I want to get involved in. Can you suggest hardware? Or recomend a hosted solution? Looking at 1TB for just now. There is lots of options, but would like some suggestions on here of tried and tested by real people.

I have a very reliable connection in my home.
 
bigmaz2000 said:
Thanks for the reply. That's the solutions i'm looking at yes. As I said in my original post, i'm happy building PCs, so I could build my own DIY server, but i'd rather get something pre installed, as server software isn't something I want to get involved in. Can you suggest hardware? Or recomend a hosted solution? Looking at 1TB for just now. There is lots of options, but would like some suggestions on here of tried and tested by real people.

I have a very reliable connection in my home.
Click to expand...
In terms of server software I would recommend Linux but I guess that is unfamiliar to you?
Windows Server licensing can get costly but definitely something more familiar.

Hardware wise, honestly for a simple file server you don't even have to go for a proper server if you don't want. You can get a beefy Synology which may even be suitable.

Have you considered the impact this will have on your network, you may need to look into better equipment than a standard ISP router. Is the 1gb line a dedicated business one or just standard home broadband?
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
In terms of server software I would recommend Linux but I guess that is unfamiliar to you?
Windows Server licensing can get costly but definitely something more familiar.

Hardware wise, honestly for a simple file server you don't even have to go for a proper server if you don't want. You can get a beefy Synology which may even be suitable.

Have you considered the impact this will have on your network, you may need to look into better equipment than a standard ISP router. Is the 1gb line a dedicated business one or just standard home broadband?
Click to expand...

Thanks again for your reply, really appreciate it :)

It will have to be Windows for server software, as Autodesk products are designed and tested to work on Windows servers.

I have just noticed this on Autodesk website. I've researched a lot, but missed this. Is this of help?

Before investing in a storage solution:
  • Check with the vendor to confirm that it can fully support SMB and Windows networking protocols.
  • Check on the technical support offered by the vendor for troubleshooting problems with SMB/Application interactions.
Found here

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/supp...-file-servers-or-cloud-storage-solutions.html
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
It appears that AutoDesk actually offer a range of cloud solutions, have you considered those at all?
https://www.autodesk.co.uk/360-cloud

I don't know about the pricing but its been built for your exact needs so it could be something to trial before commiting money into hardware etc?
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yeah, I know these solutions very well, and surprise surprise, the way they have written their software, it’s the best solution. But they’ve priced it to be unaffordable for smaller companies. Not sure how well you know Autodesk, but they are notoriously expensive. We already pay thousands per year on their software, and like many many other small firms, we cannot afford thousands more per year just to store our models on their 360 servers. They have the monopoly in the Engineering world, so companies are forced to pay for their software.
 
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We've had the same problem but with Autodesk Inventor - it doesn't work with anything except an SMB share (or a deployment of Vault or a subscription to their cloud offering). Ended up buying a two bay Synology NAS and putting a couple of SSDs in it. Remote access is via our existing VPN, but I'm pretty sure the NAS can be a VPN server if you don't have one already.
 
Caged said:
We've had the same problem but with Autodesk Inventor - it doesn't work with anything except an SMB share (or a deployment of Vault or a subscription to their cloud offering). Ended up buying a two bay Synology NAS and putting a couple of SSDs in it. Remote access is via our existing VPN, but I'm pretty sure the NAS can be a VPN server if you don't have one already.
Click to expand...

How do you find the performance when working remotely?
 
SMB3 is much better than previous protocols at dealing with latency. It's always going to be worse than local access but the only real alternative for Autodesk applications is to run virtual desktops which may be outside the budget of a smaller company, though you should consider it.
 
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