Sharing Files With Google Drive

[BryceEngstrom]

Thanks for the tip.  Yeah, my library is pretty darned big too from years and years of adding to it.  Sounds like manual sync-ing is the better way to go.

[Richard_Morrison]

Thanks for the tip.  Yeah, my library is pretty darned big too from years and years of adding to it.  Sounds like manual sync-ing is the better way to go.

Well, I have about 1.2GB, and it takes just a minute or two in Dropbox, even with a relatively slow connection. I'd try it before you give up prematurely.

[Barton_Brown]

Richard, just to make sure I understand...

You have your 'Chief Architect Premier X6 Data' folder stored in Dropbox, with a user_library file of 1.2GB and this 1.2GB file syncs in only a couple of minutes?!

 

I'll check into Dropbox as it sounds like they are doing a much more intelligent sync than the blind 'upload the file' syncing that Microsoft is doing with OneDrive.

Thank you for the info.

[Barton_Brown]

Found this on Wikipedia about Dropbox:

The version history is paired with the use of delta encoding technology. When a file in a user's Dropbox folder is changed, Dropbox only uploads the pieces of the file that are changed when synchronizing, when possible.

 

Given this intelligent approach, and since I would expect that for a lot of edit situations in CA that while the user_library is 'touched' but not 'altered', the use of Dropbox could be extremely quick and effective.

 

Time to get an account and give it a try!

[Richard_Morrison]

Richard, just to make sure I understand...

You have your 'Chief Architect Premier X6 Data' folder stored in Dropbox, with a user_library file of 1.2GB and this 1.2GB file syncs in only a couple of minutes?!

 

I'll check into Dropbox as it sounds like they are doing a much more intelligent sync than the blind 'upload the file' syncing that Microsoft is doing with OneDrive.

Thank you for the info.

 

Correctamundo. The entire X6 Data folder, including the User Library, is on Dropbox. It is really nice to add something to the library on the desktop at the office, and then find it in the library upon opening the laptop at home. If I tweak a toolbar or add a keyboard shortcut on the laptop, it is there at the desktop, too.

[Barton_Brown]

Thanks Richard! 

 

Since my last post I installed Dropbox and have been enjoying the amazing speed of the file syncing. I made changes to the user_library on one computer and the sync had completed before I was able to get my CA license deactivated/activated on another computer!

 

Thanks for posting to this thread - this is exactly the performance I wanted and was pretty bummed by the poor sync performance of OneDrive.

[Barton_Brown]

I was presently surprised by Dropbox. I was expecting to pay $10/month to get 100 GB of storage (first 2 GB is free). After installing Dropbox on three PC's and two Android devices, I was awarded with 50 GB of FREE storage for 24 months! More than enough for my CA needs!

[mpatalsky]

I just upgraded to X7 and I'm looking to streamline the process of keeping my libraries up to date on any computer that I use.  I hate trying to find the file or texture that is missing because I don't have it on that specific computer.  For what I read, I gather that all I need to do is to put the X7 Data folder in my OneDrive or Dropbox?  The only thing that doesn't make sense is when I look at where the Core, Manufacture or Bonus folders are, they are in a different folder than the Data folder.  Do I need to add those folders too?

 

Thanks,

Mike

2015-02-02_12-52-47.pdf

[lbuttery]

since I'm the cautious type

 

I would let Chief keep the libraries where they are

 

then I would manually copy them to the Dropbox folder

perhaps daily at the start or end of a work session

 

Lew

[Barton_Brown]

Mike, I left the core, manufacture, and bonus library files alone (did not move them to drop box). I only moved the 'Chief Architect Premier X7 Data' folder to Dropbox. This is working fine for me. I didn't want to muck around with the CA core libraries and since it wasn't a big deal to keep them upgraded on each machine I left them alone. For me, it is the user library that changed a lot and I wanted to have an easy way to keep my desktop and laptops in sync.

[BryceEngstrom]

Glad this got bumped again.  A while back I did a major house cleaning of my User Library and just now finally started to refer Chief to my Google Drive for that.  Will see how it goes from my laptop at home tonight.

[Richard_Morrison]

Keep in mind that the speed of syncing with Dropbox may be very different than with Google Drive.

[mpatalsky]

Thanks for the clarification Barton.

[BryceEngstrom]

Keep in mind that the speed of syncing with Dropbox may be very different than with Google Drive.

Does this mean you think one is faster than the other?  So far I have found Google Drive to be nearly seamless.

[Barton_Brown]

Bryce, just to reiterate, as I mentioned last year when this thread started, there was a huge performance difference between OneDrive and Dropbox - with Dropbox being significantly faster. I don't know about the performance of Google Drive. It all depends upon whether Google does 'intelligent' syncing where only the changed parts of a file are updated and not the whole file. OneDrive would update the whole file which was a killer on a library database. 

 

I'm not much help here on answering your question other than to confirm that it is likely that one approach is faster than another... If you start using Google Drive and find that it is taking minutes for the syncing to complete and this time is getting in your way from a workflow standpoint,  I would suggest getting a free Dropbox account and 'give it a go'. Obvously, if you find the syncing time to be insignificant with Google Drive, no need to change... 

[Richard_Morrison]

Dropbox has been VERY fast, but I haven't compared it to Drive in a speed test. It would be worth finding out how long it takes for yours to sync. If it's working for you, then no need to change. But if you aren't happy with Drive, then no need to just give up on the concept of having the Data Folder in the Cloud.

[BryceEngstrom]

Finally just tonight got X7 on to my laptop and will start seeing how this works and will report back.

 

One thing I have noticed with X7 is that I am not getting the "file locked" or referenced plan files not getting recognized when closing a Chief plan and/or layout file, and then attempting to quickly re-open them.  This used to happen frequently in X6 and the only thing that would fix this would be to restart the computer, a real drag.

 

Now sometimes I get the same warnings, but find the problem goes away if I just give Google Drive a few moments to complete syncing.  Then everything seems to open up fine again.  Not sure if this means improvements to X7, to Drive, or both.  We'll see if the common cloud Data File adds to this issue or not.

[BryceEngstrom]

Started getting the attached warning lately.  Not sure what this is about.  Might be a issue with my hard drive.  New computer getting delivered in a few days so might be moot anyway.

 

Anyone else get this error message using Google Drive for the Chief Data File?  Other than this, it had been working pretty seamlessly.

[kMoquin]

I get that warning pretty regularly. (Ie - a few times a day) I work from a Dropbox folder. I assume it's a syncing issue.

[jcaffee]

One of the reasons I use OneDrive is the ability to select Batch Update.  Files sync when idle or closed, not on change, save or auto save.  I use Creative Cloud (get sync errors constantly during auto save in Photoshop), DropBox and Google Drive for other stuff, but not CA.

 

jon

[BryceEngstrom]

I sort of assumed it was coming up each time Chief tried to autosave.  Doesn't seem to happen right away, but after I have a fairly large file open I have been working on, it comes up every few minutes.  Will see if it keeps happening once I get the new rig set up.  I went for months without this coming up at all.