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PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

(OP)
Hi,

I'm experiencing extremely slow performance with PDMworks when working with large assemblies - it's taking around 10 mins to check in an assembly that's got around 3500 parts.  

Is this normal? Or just something I've got to put up with?

I'm running SW2006 sp4.1
2.4GHz processor
2.00GB RAM
PDM client build 0066
PDM vault build 0066

Cheers for any help

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

We don't use PDMW but we do use SMARTEAM and a 3500 component assembly will take some time to check in regardless. There are also other things which can factor into your speed issue such as: Are you working locally with the files or on the network? What is your network speed? How new/old is the server your vault is running on?

You could have the fastest server and workstations available but if your network is only running at 10MB half duplex (which isn't likely) it's going to be slow to move files across it.

I'm sure one of our resident PDMW gurus will chime in and give you a more accurate assesment, but again I don't think it's completely out of the question to take 10 minutes for that large assembly and its components...at least not with ST.

Kevin Carpenter
CAD Systems Specialist
Invacare Corp.

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

(OP)
Many thanks for the reply.  A couple of points to add:
- My network connection speed is 100Mbps, which I presume is pretty quick(?)
- I'm generally working locally, with the Vault located on the server
- Even though there are 3500 separate parts, there are only 100-150 different parts

Is this sort of check in time really to be expected?

Cheers,


Simon

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

Given these new facts, I would personally have to say no. But again my PDM system is SMARTEAM and I don't believe it would take it 10 minutes to do what you're doing in PDMW.

Your network speed is more than adequate, your working locally then checking in which is typical, and you're only talking about 100-150 unique parts w/ 3500 instances/iterations of those in your assembly.

10 minutes is beginning to sound a bit lengthy for a check in of this size.

Kevin Carpenter
CAD Systems Specialist
Invacare Corp.

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

What are your PDMW vault server specs (RAM, CPU speed)?

The slowness you're seeing is likely not only related to moving the actual files to the vault serverbut processing the reference list as well.  This can be quite complex in an assembly of the size you mention, even more so if you've got external references.

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

I had the same problem a few years ago. My network connection speed was 100Mbps. Then it was boosted up, but not sure to what. It fixed the problem.
Have your network cables and server checked also.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

Just a note regarding servers, the NICs should always be set to the fastest speed the switches/routers are capable of running.  They should never be set to auto negotiate. I have seen substantial decreases in server performance if this is set incorrectly.

Kevin Carpenter
CAD Systems Specialist
Invacare Corp.

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

The SP4 release of PDMW is very sensitive to a Microsoft server 2003 hotfix patch. If you are running PDMW on Server2003 be sure you have all the patches. We saw extreme slowness until we applied the patch, then we saw improved speed. They have added a bunch of performance improvements to PDMW SP4.
Brad
SW2006 SP4.1

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

Simon,

It depends on the complexity of the components.  I have seen assemblies with 300 components (most of them very complicated) that take 10 minutes or more to check into PDMWorks and can't even be loaded on a 32-bit machine because of memory limitations.

Bottom line, if your components are fairly simple, the slow check-in time would surprise me, but if they are somewhat complicated, I would not be surprised at all.

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

(OP)
Many thanks for all your replies - much appreciated.

Most of the components are sheet metal parts, most without a huge amount of complexity.  It appears our servers are running on Windows 2000 Primary, so I'm guessing that'll be a big contribution to the slowdown?

RE: PDMWorks - slowdown with large assemblies?

One thing you can look into is how big the project is, this would be the sum of the size of all of the assemblies, parts and drawings that you are trying to check in.  PDMWorks also sends over the library files associated with an assembly. So, if you have fasteners with a lot of used configurations, they can get rather large.

You might try copying a folder containing your project to a shared folder on the server.  That will take the PDMWorks out of the equation and you can see if the bulk of the time is just in transferring the files to the server.

If transfer time is the bottleneck, you should get a performance boost by upgrading to a gigabit (10x faster than 100MB) network, assuming that the CPU and HD in the server is not holding you back.

Although you reported a different version of Windows than the one mentioned in the article, I found the April 26, 2005 bulletin at http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/CustomerBulletins.html to help when we had a slow vault here.

Eric

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