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can I use one cloud drive content library for two computers

TSasha SmithTSasha Smith Posts: 27,245
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Can I use one cloud drive content library for two or more computers?  How do I do that so that I am not reinstalling over stuff over and over.

Comments

  • SofaCitizenSofaCitizen Posts: 2,054

    Yes, you can access your own content on multiple machines - obviously only if it is just you that are accessing it. If you were not allowed to do this then render-rental services would not be able to exist for Daz.

    There will be a few issues with this, depending on how the "cloud drive" is accessed. If it is a pure internet based shared location then you'll have speed issues with seeking and loading times greatly increased. If it's one that "syncs" between devices (so that the same files are physically downloaded to both hard drives) then that will avoid the slowdown. You'll likely still have issues relating to the config or inner workings of the cloud drive - for example "One Drive" has been known to trip-up a few forum posters in the past with what it decides to keep or delete on your own machine.

    Technically this would mean that if you install it on one machine then it would become avaialble to both machines that share that location as a Content Directory.

    The other issue to handle is "Smart Content"/Metadata which is stored on the CMS database and so separate from the physical folder. I know that not everyone likes or uses that but it does add another element to consider. I have seem some people that also put the CMS location on a shared drive to have both machines accessing that. To me, that sounds a little dangerous and could lead to database corruption unless you ensure that only one machine accesses the database at one time. For myself, I am not using a cloud drive but instead a shared network drive on a NAS to access my content on both my Mac and Windows PC - but I have separate CMS instances for each machine. This has it's own set of pros and cons. I can install content once on one machine and then it is immediately available on the other. However, to insert the Smart Content on the second machine I have to use a script to import the DSX file of the new products. I have one to bulk-import these but it is still less than ideal to do this in a quick and convenient manner.

  • TSasha SmithTSasha Smith Posts: 27,245

    It is only going to be used by me.  I am not sharing anything to anyone but me.

  • DrunkMonkeyProductionsDrunkMonkeyProductions Posts: 1,152

    It's doable, and all you'd need to do is to map the one drive as a networked drive in windows and having the drive listed in studio through CDM(Content directory manager).

     

    I would, however, recommend against it, unless you absolutely need remote access, and can't setup your home system to do this.

    The main reason i wouldn't, is due to cost.

    Looking at Microsoft's One drive, the pricing and storage levels, are, free for 5GB, $19.99/year for 100GB, $99.99/year for 1TB and 129.99/year, for 6TB split across six 1TB accounts.

    All prices are USD, so it may vary if you're not in the u.s., or are looking at a different service.

     

    For comparison, a 1TB HDD(spinning rust) is ~$30 usd on newegg, and an SSD is  ~$50.

    Even if you don't have the space in your computer for an additional drive, you can alwasy go external, via USB or ethernet.They'll be a bit pricer though, but still cheaper than most cloud storage solutions.

     

    My recomendation, would be to just setup a network share of your current install.

    If you're not familiar with how to do this, i'd recommend looking up a tutorial on your particular operating system.

    Unfortunately, as sofacitizen points out, Smart content can get a bit problematic with shared systems, and is part of the reason i've never used it.

     

     

     

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