Saving drawings locally or on server

[palmersheetmetal]

We have six AutoCAD stations and one server. We are currently saving drawings that are being worked on in that computer and not to the server. The fear is that the drawing will be lost or over written if it is saved to the server. Does anyone have an easy solution or recommendation for this issue? Is a program or software availible for this kind of situation?

[cjehly]

Backups ?

Temp files can be recovered in the event of a crash as well from your local HD.

[cadragon]

You should be working on the server. Saving locally and copying to the server means that two or more can be working on the same drawing at the same time and the last person who copies to the server overwrites everyone else's work.

By working on the server, only one person at a time can work on a drawing and if someone else tries to open it they can only open it in read-only mode.

[ScottieM]

Are your stations running off the server, or is it 6 stand alones?
If they are stand alones then you might run into database issues.

For the best practice, you should be running all the stations and job files off the server, off one installation.
Windows has a file protection built in.

[cam-nav]

If the only reason for working on your local drive is speed then you should have a strict protocol setup so nothing happens to the files when they are written back to the server.
I also do this while others work off the server I have large files and the server I would have to work from is off site. We have a server @ the shop office and a server on one of our large projects (I am working on from the shop office). We have not run into overwrite problems and all of our server data is backed-up every night on tapes.

I would look into a backup drive or something similar, if the big concern is lost data.
Also look into setting up a strict drawing sign-out if everyone insisits on working local.

[palmersheetmetal]

Thanks for the help and solutions. I will try and see if this resolves some of our issues.