File storage and applications

[F.I.ImGoingFishing]

I just recently became responsible for the prepress department and maybe I am just not educated enough in this area but it would seem to me that just like many job flow programs, it would be best if files were stored on a common server and only the applications be stored on the macs and pc's in our art department.
This art department has been manned by at least 5 differant typesetters/designers that I am aware of and the mac has several external hard drives of various ages hooked up by fire wires and usb's, any time the typesetter is handed a project to change a form that has not been changed in months or years , I get time tickets back with hours instead of what I would have considered minutes in an estimate. Seems it takes a search of several dirves to find the files. and then I watched as they search for the file, go to open it and it takes several minutes just to open the file. not only that but half the time there is a missing font or graphic.
Beyond the the risk of a crash on the mac or one of those external drives , wouldn't the mac run faster if the files were stored seperatly?

 

[cjwworld]

I think you should have a separate Server to host the common files. It is more secure and faster to retrieve. It also would cut down the bandwidth of your network if you have a server.. Right now we have two servers with an backup solution (daily) backing both.

 

[F.I.ImGoingFishing]

I think you should have a separate Server to host the common files. It is more secure and faster to retrieve. It also would cut down the bandwidth of your network if you have a server.. Right now we have two servers with an backup solution (daily) backing both.

Are servers dedicated to the art department or just seperate drives on the corprate servers?

 

[oxburger]

Ours is a central server for prepress only. It is currently about 500 GB, but we will be increasing to 1 TB soon. We back up these files to AIT tape when the jobs are completed and shipped, so if the job is on the server, it is only because it is out to proof or has not been printed. However, our CSR's have access to it, so that they may email pdf files to clients as needed for approval. Our folder structure for each job is as follows:

• Apogee (our saved apogeex tickets)
• Customer Original Files (New page layout files from clients go here (Quark, InDesign, Word, etc.) or old jobs that have been picked up that are going to have changes made to them)
• Data (Mailing Lists, etc)
• Fonts (duh)
• Graphics (all illustrator and photoshop files)
• Final PDFs (when the job is done, a final pdf is saved to this folder)
• Template (preps template)
• Working Files (Our most current/final page layout files)

 

[cjwworld]

We have 1 TB drive mirrored to two drives that host data for three departments. Editorial, Composition, and Commercial. We also have an older server that host the accounting data. It really one Server (Computer) dedicated to host data, not a separate drive

any computer that needs any of the data are connected to the server. Macs easily connects but also able to connect pcs to it by mapping a drive

 

[zoran]

This is very similar in how we have the setup, however, would you mind explaining how the CSR's are mailing out PDF's if they are too big?
We have additional "Low-res PDF" folder but we only put low-res PDF's by request there.

Thanks

Ours is a central server for prepress only. It is currently about 500 GB, but we will be increasing to 1 TB soon. We back up these files to AIT tape when the jobs are completed and shipped, so if the job is on the server, it is only because it is out to proof or has not been printed. However, our CSR's have access to it, so that they may email pdf files to clients as needed for approval. Our folder structure for each job is as follows:

• Apogee (our saved apogeex tickets)
• Customer Original Files (New page layout files from clients go here (Quark, InDesign, Word, etc.) or old jobs that have been picked up that are going to have changes made to them)
• Data (Mailing Lists, etc)
• Fonts (duh)
• Graphics (all illustrator and photoshop files)
• Final PDFs (when the job is done, a final pdf is saved to this folder)
• Template (preps template)
• Working Files (Our most current/final page layout files)

 

[otherthoughts]

I just recently became responsible for the prepress department and maybe I am just not educated enough in this area but it would seem to me that just like many job flow programs, it would be best if files were stored on a common server and only the applications be stored on the macs and pc's in our art department.
This art department has been manned by at least 5 differant typesetters/designers that I am aware of and the mac has several external hard drives of various ages hooked up by fire wires and usb's, any time the typesetter is handed a project to change a form that has not been changed in months or years , I get time tickets back with hours instead of what I would have considered minutes in an estimate. Seems it takes a search of several dirves to find the files. and then I watched as they search for the file, go to open it and it takes several minutes just to open the file. not only that but half the time there is a missing font or graphic.
Beyond the the risk of a crash on the mac or one of those external drives , wouldn't the mac run faster if the files were stored seperatly?

For the most part I agree with your general conclusions and concerns.

There are several factors to consider here.

The greater the number of employees who will need access to the job data simultaneously, the more rational it is to house the data upon a file server networked so that it is accessible to all. If however only one or two employees require access to the job data at a time, a designated file server would naturally be less of a concern.

Perhaps the greater issue you mentioned revolves around access to archival data.

Data can be on-line, near-line or off-line.

For example,

The data might currently reside on your server's file systems, be it a Mac USB/Firewire/internal drive or a central file server. This is on-line

Your data may currently be archived upon a tape that is currently resident in your tape jukebox. This is near-line.

Your data may currently be archived upon a tape that is currently non-resident in your tape jukebox. This is off-line.

The current status of your data, on-line, near-line or off-line has a direct relationship to the speed with which you will be able to access it.

The next issue to look into is the type of database you are running and the hardware it is running on.

This ranges from a simple search with a "find" command at the OS platform's level executed upon every file system it has mounted. This is likely the slowest method and would only search on-line data.

A real database allows you to search all your data whether it is on-line, near-line or off-line and should allow you to determine what exists where and define where the item(s) exist now.

Tape is not the only type of archival media to be sure. CDs, DVDs, removable disk drives, etc.

Another issue is data security, this ranges from RAID technologies and backup tools. Just to be clear, backups are for disaster recovery whereas archives are used to migrate data that no longer requires being stored on-line.

Lastly, the manner and organizational parameters that you have implemented in terms of record keeping will influence your searches regardless.
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Best Regards
Otherthoughts