Photo import planning

[Robert Mader]

Hi,

We have a database with 26,000 records. It has been working great, we would like to start adding the actual slides that that it tracks. We have 89,000 slides. Can I add the slides to the database in containers, or should I link them to external folders. Obviously this is going to turn into a large amout of data. What's the best way to go for expandability? It is hosted on FileMaker Server 7 on a Mac OS X.4 G4. I will probably upgrade the hardware soon.

Thanks

Rob

[Fenton]

There's more than 1 way to "show" pictures in FileMaker. One big consideration is how organized they are. Because, if they are all named according to a field in the database, and likewise in a folder the database knows about, then you can create a calculation to show the picture(s). If a picture is where you say it should be, it shows, otherwise not. No Importing needed.

Basically if the pictures are stored "as reference only" (which the calculation method above is a variation of), then they have to be on a "file-server" mounted volume, which is NOT the FileMaker one. How you tell FileMaker about them can be the calculation method above, or you can import as reference only, or you can use a combo of the 2 methods; import the file path and use that for a calculation to show the picture.

Any calculation method has the advantage that you can change the name of the server volume w/out breaking references. Its disadvantage is that it needs a well-organized folder structure.

Alternatively you can just import and embed the lot into a related FileMaker file (not the main data file; I wouldn't anyway). Then you have few considerations, other then more time to import, and somewhat less access to the pictures.

[Robert Mader]

Thanks Fenton,

I like the calculation idea. I was about to play around with importing them directly into the main database. I'm glad you stopped me from that. We are just beginning to scan slides so we need to plan carefully now. I have another Xserve on order and it's coming with a Xraid as well, so the separate FileServer model sounds like the best way to go for us.

I'm gonna play around with this. Thank you for your help.

Rob