Speed of response in iView and Expression Media

[Mark Cornwell]

Hello, I've just joined and, after a scout around earlier to see if anyone had posted along these lines, I have a question.

My setup was laptop running XP and iView with local files. As part of a laptop upgrade I also swapped to Expression Media and moved files to an XP machine that had a spare (new) drive in it. The old laptop could cope no more... three year old laptops with 512MB of memory and a 30GB drive don't take kindly to CS2 Premium , bless it!

With local files iView had been very fast at moving to different ratings, labels or catalogues (though I did notice that using folders was slow at times).
With remote files and Expression Media everything went odd. I had presumed it must be an EM thing - after all, Peter's book indicated no problems with speed when using iView. Indeed, one of the reasons I purchased it was to allow me to work on files that I only had thumbnails locally of. Trying to browse them with Bridge might have been "a bridge too far" for my old machine.

Today, however, I tested by uninstalling EM, installing iView and checking... the results were the same. Conclusion... something in my configuration is awry. But what?

I posted on the Microsoft EM forum the other week. No responses. So I'm trying here in case the wisdom of sages can tell me where I have made a mistake.

Here is the situation:
Catalogue is local in "my documents" folder. Files are remote on a Z: drive.

With the Z: drive DISCONNECTED: everything goes very fast. I can open folders, I can look at catalog sets etc.
With the Z: drive CONNECTED: everything grinds to a halt. Switching from one catalog to the next slows to a crawl whilst it seems to go and check the network for my files and reconstruct what is already in the database.

So for speed I could disconnect Z:, do a search, reconnect Z: and then look at the files. What a mess though!

For the moment I have copied all of the files to my shiny new laptop. Rather than use the server as a "server" I will use the network drive as my first backup (the second backup will be to an external USB drive on the server and third backup to a pair of DVDs). It is a sad way to have to work but I can't wait forever for views to appear.

Can anyone think what I might need to change to allow the system to work as fast with the files connected as it does when they are disconnected? It has to be something really silly but I'm blessed if I can spot it.

Thanks.
          Mark

(ps, forgive my spelling catalog/catalogue - I'm English )

[roberte]

Hi Mark,

The key line in your question is Rather than use the server as a "server" I will use the network drive as my first backup. iView and xMedia perform poorly on network drives with Windows, so much so it isn't usable when they are connected. xMedia is looking for changes or access to items when online.

Microsoft have stated publicly this is one major bug they inherited and want to fix asap. I expect it will be in the first Expression Media Service Pack due around November. Meantime I suggest using a local drive as the archive and leaving (disconnected) external drives for backups.

-- Robert.

[Mark Cornwell]

Robert, thanks for the informative answer. I'd searched and not found anything anywhere to say that it was a problem. Nice to know that it is a) recognised b) something that will be getting attention.

My xcopy of files completed yesterday evening. I'm now working with the network drive just for backups - at least until we get that service pack

Regards,
          Mark

[DJ Webb]

Mark. I'm surprised you didn't find anything about this. It is most peoples major compaint when it comes to ivmp3 and xM. I use a NAS to store all my photos and its actually impossible to work with them live. I do all my work with it offline and then let ivmp3 sync over night.

If Microsoft knew this was a major bug (as it is) when they brought ivmp3 it should have been number one on the hitlist and been tackled for version 1. They are trying to sell this program to professionals and more and more of those have some sort of network array. To realise a crippled version as version 1 is so stupid. you'd think they would have learnt from Apples aperture mistakes.

[Patrick]

Mark. I'm surprised you didn't find anything about this. It is most peoples major compaint when it comes to ivmp3 and xM. I use a NAS to store all my photos and its actually impossible to work with them live. I do all my work with it offline and then let ivmp3 sync over night.

I am in the same boat, except overnight is not enough time to get the synching done. I have a (what I considered to be) small catalog I was trying to assemble first before tackling our main images collection. It is a directory of about 10,000 small jpeg images, overall no more than 400mb total. I have been trying for almost two weeks to build a catalog without it crashing to a point of no return.

I did find a extremely inconsistent system that is getting the job done, but it will take about one full week to complete. I moved about 100 of the images into a folder and added that folder into EM. After that initial catalog was created and saved, I add ~1000 images to that folder and sync in EM. EM will not respond for about 4 hours, then begin the import process which will take another 5 hours. With this process I can do 1000 during the day and start another 1000 at night. Sadly, this is the best I am able to come up with.

It makes me quiver thinking about how this will go with actual 12mb DNG files and 100mb PSD files. I just pray daily that the service pack gets release.

Patrick