Small network of perhaps half a dozen engineers, currently working on local copies of AutoCAD project files, which are then copied back up to file server (2008 Standard, 1-2 year old Dell server hardware, RAID 5 SAS disks (10k? not positive)) at end of day.
To me, this sounds horribly inefficient and error-prone, however, I've been told that "AutoCAD and network files = bad idea" and this is gospel.
The network is currently 10/100 (perhaps this is the reason for the "gospel") but all the workstations are within 2 years old and have GbE NICs so an upgrade of the core switch is long overdue. However, I know certain applications don't like network access, at all, and any sign of latency or disruption brings the whole thing crashing down.
Anyone care to chime in?
Best Answer
In a previous job we had about a dozen engineers and, at that time, a 100Mb LAN. For all but the most trivial drawings using the files over the network was unacceptable. As we started to upgrade to 1Gb things got a little better but even then working on local copies was far better for medium to large drawings. I don't recall the file sizes but they were mostly detailed engineering drawings of anything from a house to very large public buildings with anything from a dozen detail layers upwards.