FM12 External Container Storage Locations

[Chong-Yee]

On a hosted FM12 database, it does not appear possible to have the storage location be on a connected hard disk, e.g., a FireWire volume.

e.g., when the "Base Directories" in "Manage Containers" is set to "/Volumes/ExternalHD/FolderName/" on a local FM12 file, this works fine and the files are stored in the expected location.

When the same file is uploaded to Server, however, the path appears to be treated as relative to the [hosted location]

FileMaker documentation is (deliberately?) ambiguous - from Q&A at http://help.filemaker.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10244/kw/opening%20files%20in%20container%20fields

"Can external storage be located on different drives? Yes, this includes mounted volumes."

and then a couple of lines below:

"Are containers with external storage supported when hosted via FileMaker Server?

Yes, when a file is added to a container field that is configured for external storage, the files are automatically transferred to the server machine. A directory is created next to the database file within the "Databases" folder within the "FileMaker Server" directory."

Can someone please confirm that this is the expected behaviour? If so, then it is a little annoying.

Regards,

Chong-Yee

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Please read the paper Wim Decorte and I wrote about Remote Containers and their behaviors. It's on my BLOG page here on FM Forums:

http://fmforums.com/forum/blog/13/entry-313-filemaker®-server-12-bold-new-steps/

There are a number of items you need to be aware of regrading remote containers and how they work.

Steven

[Wim Decorte]

Yes, it is expected behavior. Remember that remote containers is just about where the data is stored outside the FM file, but that data is still very much part of the FM file. So storing that on a mounted drive doesn't make a lot of sense in this iteration of remote containers.

RC is not a document management system. Every backup mechanism for instance will include those remote container data files so if for some reason your mounted volume is not available, your backups will not be valid. Also performance will be much slower than it can be.

Sounds like you would be better off with something like SuperContainer.

[Chong-Yee]

Yes, it is expected behavior. Remember that remote containers is just about where the data is stored outside the FM file, but that data is still very much part of the FM file. So storing that on a mounted drive doesn't make a lot of sense in this iteration of remote containers.

RC is not a document management system. Every backup mechanism for instance will include those remote container data files so if for some reason your mounted volume is not available, your backups will not be valid. Also performance will be much slower than it can be.

Sounds like you would be better off with something like SuperContainer.

Dear Mr Decorte,

Thank you very much for your helpful reply. It answers my questions and provides some good insight as well.

We use SuperContainer at the moment and are quite happy with it; I was just wondering if (and to what extent) external container fields can replace SuperContainer. I am aware that 360Works has just yesterday posted a comparison table.

Regards,

Chong-Yee

[fmforums2]

We currently use Supercontainer of 360works for storage of files in container fields using IWP & webviewers.

We are quite happy with Supercontainer, except that some additional installation tasks are introduced.

Does FM12 offer new container functions with similar possibilities as Supercontainer?

[Chong-Yee]

Does FM12 offer new container functions with similar possibilities as Supercontainer?

Have a look at this document, just published by 360Works - http://360works.com/articles/detail/208

[Wim Decorte]

I was just wondering if (and to what extent) external container fields can replace SuperContainer.

Not knowing what features of SuperContainer you use, it's hard to answer that question. Two quick things: SuperContainer data is just "linked" to the FM records. That means that you can work with that SC data outside of FM if you want. That is not the case with FM RC.

On the plus side for FM RC: they are automatically included in any backups. That is not the case with SC data.

Overall though and fundamentally, SC and RC are different animals.

[Peter Lehrack]

So storing that on a mounted drive doesn't make a lot of sense in this iteration of remote containers.

It makes sense when my FM server is deployed on a Mac Mini with a 256GB SSD and a 12TB Pegasus RAID with over 2TB of container data already. I use Supercontainer currently but would like to switch to FM12's external container storage as I need to have a scripted container data email capability via FMGo.

Peter