Upgrade StorageBest network based solution?
I have been using Zotero now for quite a while and have not really had many issues using it for my personal collection. However, I haven't been able to figure out a decent solution for sharing files and metadata across a large network. I do academic research for work and all of my collaborators have access to mapped network drives and we all use Windows. Many of our research projects involve a bunch of PDFs and, in addition to individual project libraries, we maintain a central reference library of everything. I know that there is plenty of forum talk on this subject and I have done my research in the past. Here is my current solution:
I have a Citrix Portal installation of Zotero that all users have access to. I also have a batch file that will copy zotero.sqlite to an external local folder and overwrites the configuration file to point to this database. Zotfile maintains the links to the network file locations. I also have a script that will update the server version of the database when things change and saves backup versions.
The problems are: a) I have to maintain this system when Zotero and Citrix updates occur and it is getting kind of annoying to fix. b) This works well for smaller databases but the central reference library, which has over 7,000 items, takes quite some time to switch into even when I keep the database small with no OCR/etc.
My ideal solution would be to forgo the Citrix Portal and just have everyone use local installations of Zotero w/ groups. As I understand it, the problem here is that we couldn't really take advantage of our network storage and would have to use the Zotero cloud. I don't think anyone would object to the $120/year price for unlimited storage, but I foresee a couple problems:
a) Access to our mapped network drives is super fast, but I could see it taking a while to sync all pdfs from the cloud. When I share a Zotero group does the user on the other side have to download all of the pdfs associated with a collection in order to view the metadata or will that lag only happen when they want to view a pdf?
b) I see that group storage limits are user specific. For a large library, if one user with unlimited storage uploads a bunch of files can other users without unlimited storage access these files and associated metadata?
I think that the most ideal solution would be to use the concept of Zotero Groups to share content that has Zotfile PDF links to network locations. Am I correct that this is not possible? Last time I checked this was true, but I wanted to confirm since my current solution is a couple years old now.
I have a Citrix Portal installation of Zotero that all users have access to. I also have a batch file that will copy zotero.sqlite to an external local folder and overwrites the configuration file to point to this database. Zotfile maintains the links to the network file locations. I also have a script that will update the server version of the database when things change and saves backup versions.
The problems are: a) I have to maintain this system when Zotero and Citrix updates occur and it is getting kind of annoying to fix. b) This works well for smaller databases but the central reference library, which has over 7,000 items, takes quite some time to switch into even when I keep the database small with no OCR/etc.
My ideal solution would be to forgo the Citrix Portal and just have everyone use local installations of Zotero w/ groups. As I understand it, the problem here is that we couldn't really take advantage of our network storage and would have to use the Zotero cloud. I don't think anyone would object to the $120/year price for unlimited storage, but I foresee a couple problems:
a) Access to our mapped network drives is super fast, but I could see it taking a while to sync all pdfs from the cloud. When I share a Zotero group does the user on the other side have to download all of the pdfs associated with a collection in order to view the metadata or will that lag only happen when they want to view a pdf?
b) I see that group storage limits are user specific. For a large library, if one user with unlimited storage uploads a bunch of files can other users without unlimited storage access these files and associated metadata?
I think that the most ideal solution would be to use the concept of Zotero Groups to share content that has Zotfile PDF links to network locations. Am I correct that this is not possible? Last time I checked this was true, but I wanted to confirm since my current solution is a couple years old now.
b) no, that's a misunderstanding. The group's storage only counts against the quota of the group's owner, so you only need one unlimited account to manage a large group with n members, all of whom can have free accounts.
And file links are still not available for groups, so the ZotFile for groups solution is indeed not available.