How to Manually Relocate SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Files

If you're running out of disk space on the drive that you installed your archive server on, you may want to relocate the archive files to another drive or split the archive files across multiple drives. Follow the steps in this article to relocate SOLIDWORKS PDM archive files to another drive or split them up across multiple drives. 

Prior to relocating the archive files:

• Backup the vault database
• Backup the existing vault archive files

Step 1: Stop the Archive Server service

• Open the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server Configuration tool.
• Stop the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server service.
• Close the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server Configuration tool.

Step 2: Find the current location for the archive table folders

To determine the current location of the archive files, open the Windows registry on the Windows server running the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server Configuration tool.

• Search for ‘regedit’ from the Windows Start menu.
• In the Windows Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterprise\ArchiveServer\Vault\[vault name]\ArchiveTable.

You will find keys on the right labeled ArchiveTable0 to ArchiveTable9 and ArchiveTablea to ArchiveTablef. These keys store the locations for the archive folders specific to the selected vault.

Step 3: Move the archive server table folders

You can move the folder located at each directory path to a new drive (or separate drives) using Windows Explorer.

Step 4 – Update the Archive Table keys in the Windows Registry

Once you have moved the archive folders to a new location, update the directory path value for the corresponding ‘ArchiveTable’ key in the Windows registry found in Step 2.

Step 5: Start the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server service

• Open the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server Configuration tool.
• Start the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server service.
• Close the SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive Server Configuration tool.

Recommendations

If the original folders remain after copying them to a new location, make sure to rename or delete them so that they are not accidentally used instead of the folders in the new location.

I hope you found this SOLIDWORKS PDM tutorial helpful. Check out more tips and tricks below.

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