Slow network save

Rhino Rhino for Windows
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1

We are experiencing major issues when using Rhino in combination with our network. We hope you can help us resolve this, as an enormous amount of time (and therefore productivity) is being lost due to waiting times.

  • Opening an 800 MB Rhino file directly from our network drive takes approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

  • Opening the same 800 MB Rhino file directly from my local SSD takes 30 seconds.

  • Saving an 800 MB Rhino file directly to my local SSD takes 20 seconds.

  • Saving the same file directly to our network drive takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

When copying a file via Windows Explorer, we achieve a transfer speed of approximately 90–100 MB/s.

The above-mentioned Rhino model has very few external references and textures. When opening and saving models that contain many external references and textures, the time required to save directly from Rhino to our network location increases even further. In addition, some colleagues regularly work with models that are larger than 1 GB.

Of course, we understand that there is a clear difference between working locally on an SSD and working on a network location. However, the loading and saving times are, in some cases, so extreme that working centrally from a single network location for all colleagues is simply not feasible. Rhino becomes so painfully slow when saving and loading that, in some cases, this can take up to 20 minutes.

Plug-ins:
Chaos Bridge for Rhino, 3D connexion mouse, D5 Live sync for Rhino, Datasmith exporter

Can someone please help us and provide info on how to improve performance with saving Rhino files directly onto network through Rhino?

Below, you will find the specifications of my workstation.

Rhino 8 SR29 2026-3-4 (Rhino 8, 8.29.26063.11001, Git hash:master @ bbd126f84fcdaf7a974615b7c9f4f8667571c147)
License type: Commercial, build 2026-03-04
License details: LAN Zoo Network Node Checked Out

Windows 11 (10.0.22631 SR0.0) or greater (Physical RAM: 63GB)
.NET 8.0.25

Computer platform: DESKTOP

Standard graphics configuration.
Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA RTX A6000 (NVidia) Memory: 48GB, Driver date: 3-17-2026 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 595.97

Accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)

  • Secondary monitor attached to adapter port 0
  • Windows Main Display attached to adapter port 1

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
GPU Tessellation is: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
Graphics level being used: OpenGL 4.6 (primary GPU’s maximum)

Anti-alias mode: 4x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High

Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 3-17-2026
Driver Version: 32.0.15.9597
Maximum Texture size: 32768 x 32768
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 32768 x 32768
Total Video Memory: 49140 MB

Rhino plugins that do not ship with Rhino
C:\ProgramData\McNeel\Rhinoceros\8.0\Plug-ins\Datasmith Rhino Exporter (d1fdc795-b334-4933-b680-088119cdc6bb)\DatasmithRhino8.rhp “Datasmith Exporter” 5.6.1.0
C:\Program Files\Enscape\Enscape.Rhino.Plugin-net48\Enscape.Rhino8.Plugin.dll “Enscape.Rhino8.Plugin” 4.17.0.1175
C:\Users\0b5f9\AppData\Roaming\McNeel\Rhinoceros\8.0\Plug-ins\D5LiveSync (e0d5e210-02f6-4ee9-a2b0-1675e225d958)\D5Conv.rhp “D5 Live Sync for Rhino”
C:\Program Files\Chaos\Bridge\Chaos Bridge for Rhinoceros\V8\ChaosBridge.rhp “Chaos Bridge for Rhino”

Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 8.29.26063.11001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoRenderCycles.rhp “Rhino Render” 8.29.26063.11001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI” 8.29.26063.11001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\MeshCommands.rhp “MeshCommands” 8.29.26063.11001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles” 8.29.26063.11001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars” 8.29.26063.11001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\SectionTools.rhp “SectionTools”

2

One of the usual troubleshooting techniques when Rhino has third-party plugins is to disable each one-by-one to confirm none of them are contributing to the problem. Another approach is to disable them all just to confirm the problem is strictly due to Rhino. Have you tried these?

3

Disabled my Plug-ins (mostly for rendering)

I have a Rhino file of 1021 MB.

Opening from local C:\Temp results in 39 seconds.

Opening from the network drive results in 2 minutes 40 seconds.

There are 4 references inside.
1 referring to a local *.EXR

3 referring to network *.PNG

What can cause this taking so long opening from a network drive?

4

Hi @erik.tukker,

Opening from or saving to a network drive will never be as fast as performing the same operation locally.

The reasons for slowness are many: general network latency, encryption, SMB signing, directory caching, services running on the server, etc.

Best to Google to the topic. If you have a network admin, you might want to get them involved.

– Dale

5

Hi @dale ,

Thanks for the awnser.

Do you have a list of specific info what you need from our administrator? Otherwise, I’ll just forward what you mentioned.

-Erik

6

What he’s saying is that this will be slower inherently, regardless of network speed there is 20X more stuff going on. “Saving” seems to also be slower than straight copying. And it’s not inherently anything to do with Rhino, your programs don’t know anything about what they’re saving to that’s between the OS on your PC and the OS on the file server.

Maybe something is not ideally configured deep in the bowels of Windows, maybe your sever is just not fast enough for these operations, it’s up to your IT people to figure out.