Keeping attachment cache separate from database

cboulanger
edited April 16, 2019
Following setup at the university department where I work: I am in an office with a very slow network connection. To store my data, I can either use a roaming profile, which stores data locally and gets synchronized at login / logoff, or a slow network drive.

The problem is that
- if I store the Zotero data dir on the roaming profile, the synchronization of it times out because of the size of my "storage" directory (I have a lot of multi-megabyte PDF attachments).
- if I store it on the network drive, I get frequent database errors because the SqlLite database is not meant to be stored on a slow network drive.

One solution seems to be to store the database on the roaming profile and the attachment storage on the network drive. However, it seems not possible to separate the storage folder from the data directory, or it is? If not, are there technical reasons why that won't be possible, or could this be a feature request?
  • cboulanger
    edited April 17, 2019
    Hi - since there are so many questions in the forum, I understand that it is hard to answer all of them. Should I be asking this here or is the google group the right place?
  • adamsmith
    This is the right place. The google group is for developers.

    I know there's been some talk about restructuring the storage folder, so this isn't out of the question, but having the database and the storage folder in the same location solves the issue of linking files & metadata. Without that, users have to specify the location of the storage folder on every synced computer, which is possible, but error prone.

  • cboulanger
    Thanks Adam. I'd suggest to make it configurable in "about:config" only, so that it is hidden from the normal user. This would be something an administrator should be configuring (via prefs.js) when installing Zotero on, for example, the computers in our office floor. Would that make sense to you and be likely to be implemented?
  • cboulanger
    Since the current situation is really killing my Zotero productivity, and I would hate to have to switch to some windows-only reference manager - how could I help decide this question? I can open an issue on GitHub or even try to create a PR, but would need some pointers where to look in the code.
  • adamsmith
    I'm afraid there's not going to be a quick way to move this forward for you -- since this is core Zotero set-up, I don't think it's particularly well suited for a PR. Github issues don't get more attention than forum posts and are intended to track the status of features/changes that are agreed to by core devs and are just awaiting implementation, which isn't the case here.

    You're aware that you can use ZotFile to turn attachments into links in any custom location you want to? That does have some downsides, but it should solve your biggest issue.
  • cboulanger
    edited April 25, 2019
    Thank you for your quick feed-back. I know about ZotFile but this would mean that I cannot use the same setup at home and at work, which really is the great thing about the Zotero server. I'll keep on searching for a solution that allows me to keep on working with the current setup. Maybe if I bug the IT department enough, they'll allow me to store the Zotero data on the local drive outside the roaming data, which would solve the problem. Unfortunately and not surprisingly, they aren't particularly keen on supporting this scenario. Or thinking about it, maybe I just use a USB stick to store the Zotero data. I'll try that.
  • adamsmith
    ZotFile with relative base directories and some other sync options (like Dropbox etc.) would work, but the latter might again not be possible at work I suppose.
  • cboulanger
    DropBox? That's devil incarnate or rather devil networked under GDPR regulations :-)
  • adamsmith
    Hence "etc." -- anything that syncs files will do: OwnCloud, NextCloud, MagentaCloud, rsync with a cron job if you want to be old school...
  • cboulanger
    edited April 26, 2019
    Putting the Zotero data directory on a USB stick seems to do the trick! Now I can synchronize files just as I do at home or on my laptop, everything is decently fast and am a happy user again! Thanks, you can close the comment now if you want.
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