Are you currently working with cloud memory? is it slow?

[wkshank]

I am using my computer's memory as I work, rather than use dropbox or OneDrive, etc.  My understanding is that using a cloud as your auto-save as you work can slow down the program.  Help me geeks... is this true?  I am having a new computer (details in signature) built for me with lots of RAM/power... when I load Chief on this new machine, how do you recommend setting up the program files, auto-backup files, etc?

 

(I do manually backup my client CAD files to dropbox pretty often.. though not the program autosave files.  I haven't lost anything so far.)

 

Thanks for your advice!

 

[DavidJPotter]

The slowness comes when you open and from time to time save the plan file. If you save to your local Solid State Drive on your computer, the resultant lag is at its minimum. If you have a legacy, non-digital hard drive, the lag increases. If you are saving to cloud storage then the lag is dependant upon one's internet speed and through-put at any given moment. For greatest efficiency, I use my onboard SSD hard drive for moment to moment work and only use the Cloud as a backup, redundant way of protecting my files after the fact.

 

DJP

[davidstvz]

What you’re calling memory is actually storage, to use the correct term. Memory is typically used as a synonym for RAM.

 

In any case, Dropbox and OneDrive are cloud storage services BUT your local storage device is used as a buffer. That is, the files are written to your local storage at full local device speed, then in the background (while you keep working) the changes are duplicated to the cloud service without slowing you down in the slightest.

 

Now, both of these services have settings which can cause older files to be removed from your device to save space (while a copy is saved in the cloud). However, this only affects old files not files you’re presently working with. It should have little or no effect on your performance in most cases.

 

Long story short, please do work directly in cloud storage. I’ve been doing it for a decade. It is the easiest way to be always backed up instantly. Make sure your device has an SSD and not an old rotating platter hard drive (HDD) as that will determine your read/write performance.

 

I also have all of my HD Pro data libraries and  directories set to use my dropbox so that installations on different computers use the same core libraries, user libraries and saved files. However, just to warn you, my drop box is always in D:\Dropbox so if you don’t use the same path on each computer, I’m not certain Chief will behave.

[Chief_Id]

As David mentioned, the fastest speed you'll get is a solid state drive (SSD) attached to your local system. By attached I'm referring to the internal drive in your system, not an SSD attached using a USB port. The hard drive, regardless if SSD or a spinning platter, is the slowest component in your computer.

 

I'm not a fan of cloud storage and don't use it but regardless of the speed of one's Internet connection it will still be slower than a locally attached drive. I've never done any tests but I'd say even a locally attached SSD using a USB port on your computer (assuming it's at least USB 3) will still be faster than any cloud storage connection.

 

Another option is if your new computer will support dual drives then you can install a second internal SSD drive and use it for your autosaves. Personally, I run dual mirrored drives in a RAID configuration but this is beyond your question.

[johnny]

My firm runs 100% on the cloud - 16 team members including 3rd party engineers - and its the best thing we've done.  You can easily slave a local drive location so files you're currently using are accessed from your own HD but it uploads back to the cloud as you work - with no interruption. 

 

If i wasn't working with a team I'm not sure the advantages of working on the cloud other than an auto-versioning and backup (which is nice).

[wkshank]

thank you so much everyone for weighing in.  I am the sole station for CA, so networking/sharing is not needed.  Sounds like my current plan of manually backing up periodically is reasonable, but I will show your comments to my tech support and see if he thinks the new system would work well with a cloud-based system, given what you're saying about how the auto-save and backing up actually works.

 

[davidstvz]

Just to reiterate, a cloud service like Dropbox or Onedrive does not let the network impact performance.  If there are any services that do not use local storage at all and save yours data directly to the cloud, that would perform poorly, but I’m not aware of any that do that.

 

With Dropbox and Onedrive you can work with files directly in those storage spaces defined for them on the PC and not suffer any performance penalty because a local non-cloud copy is used. It’s best to work directly in the Dropbox or Onedrive as your backups happen instantly and automatically... no need to remember to backup and no chance for user error.

 

Now if you work in an office with a shared network drive hosted on another device (or a NAS) in the office, that can incur a performance penalty, but that’s a different kind of setup. If it’s designed well and the building has a good network, even that may not cause noticeable performance issues. These are commonly used in film production and other industries where teams need to share huge amounts of data.

 

Summary: get a computer or laptop with a nice big SSD (not an HDD) and work with all your files directly in the Dropbox or Onedrive folder.