NAS and Vectorworks – shared network projects

8 architects on 2018 iMacs

Message Body:
Will think about potentional expansion in the future but need fast network speeds. I do not have 10Gig switches.

They currently mainly use Vectorworks which I have no previous experience with so I’m not sure how to get the best performance from it, it looks like it does a bit of reading as each file may reference multiple files but then it loads it into RAM locally so disk IO might not be the most important.

Vectorworks in shared project mode will allow velar users to work simultaneously on the same project. Vectorworks themselves recommend 1GbE network for projects up to 1 Gigabyte in size. With time file sizes tend to grow exponentially. This is why 10GbE network is very useful (speed and bandwidth).

You can read more about cheapest 10GbE switches here:  https://nascompares.com/2018/01/19/cheapest-10gbe-switches/

Alternatively, if you do not want to upgrade to 10GbE yet you can also get a Qnap Thunderbolt NAS which will allow few users to connect directly via Thunderbolt and other via 1GbE (see four port 1GbE NAS). You can even install aditional PCIe card for aditional 1GbE ports. All of these conected tou your existing switch will gve each user dedicated gigabit conection.

Thunderbolt Qnap – TVS-472XT or TVS-672XT or TVS-872XT

Qnap with PCIe port for aditional network ports: TVS-473e or TVS-673e or TVS-873e

Project Sharing and Network Bandwidth

The performance of Vectorworks when working on a shared project over the network will depend on the available network bandwidth. If the network bandwidth is insufficient, operations that transfer large amount of data over the network will be slow.

We recommend at minimum a Fast Ethernet (100Mbit/s) network connection. For large projects, a Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbit/s) network is required for a fast and fluid experience.

 

Project sharing using cloud-based storages requires a high-speed internet connection (50Mbit/s or above). This method of sharing works best with small teams or small projects. It is not recommended for large teams or large projects. You can expect significant speed improvements when using Dropbox with LAN sync enabled. It is the preferred cloud-based sharing solution for project sharing and is highly recommended for project teams on the same Local Area Network.

Although project sharing requires high-speed network connections in general, slower network speeds can still provide a satisfactory user experience if you minimize operations that transfer large amounts of data over the network (such as committing changes to the project file or refreshing a local working file).

Examples of data transfer times during commit and refresh operations for different bandwidths and project file sizes are shown in the chart below.

 

Project File Size   

Network Bandwidth (download/upload)   Commit/Refresh Data Transfer Time

 

100 MB

50Mbit/s ~20s

100Mbit/s ~10s

1Gbit/s ~1s

 

500 MB

50Mbit/s ~100s

100Mbit/s ~50s

1Gbit/s ~5s

 

1GB

50Mbit/s ~200s

100Mbit/s ~100s

1Gbit/s ~10s

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