SharePoint Picture Libraries Slow to Load

[davewilliamsict]

We use SharePoint a lot. All our data is hosted in SharePoint.

 

However we use share-point via windows explore and not the web interface. We have found that loading pictures is really slow. This is because the picture and documents are hosted on the SharePoint SQL server and not traditional widows file format.

 

Does anyone know of a solution into resolving the picture loading slow?

 

I have looked everywhere for a solution.

 

Many thanks

 

Dave IT

[JordanT91]

 

Does anyone know of a solution into resolving the picture loading slow?

 

Dave IT

 

Use a proper file server? Out of interest, what's the reason for only using Windows explorer (I'm assuming davwwwroot)? You may as well just use a normal file server.

[davewilliamsict]

Its just how it is setup. I am the new guy who has just started the company. I think they use SharePoint in this way to manage file permission much better. AD group manger folder access via SharePoint folder structure. Yeah we map drives via policy.

[JordanT91]

Its just how it is setup. I am the new guy who has just started the company. I think they use SharePoint in this way to manage file permission much better. AD group manger folder access via SharePoint folder structure. Yeah we map drives via policy.

 

If photos (and probably all large files) are loading slow it will usually be either the SQL database or the network connection causing the bottleneck. What sort of server is Sharepoint and the database on? What's the CPU, RAM and network card/s usage? What sort of connection does the server have to the switch? Typically how many users are accessing Sharepoint at one time? How big are the files that are slow to load? All of things need to be considered because there's just so many things that could make it 'slow'.

 

There's some settings that can be checked both in the SQL Management Studio and also the Sharepoint configuration but first I would consider the answers to the above questions and see if that helps you.

 

In my opinion, the only good reason to use Sharepoint is for collaboration or as an intranet. Our staff here prefer it because it's easier for them use to a web interface rather than a Windows Explorer file structure. If you're not using the web interface you may as well just use a proper file server for storage. Sharepoint introduces an extra layer of unnecessary work. Permissions will come from AD so there's little difference between file server permissions and Sharepoint permissions. Because everything is located in a database it adds extra time and work for the server to query for a given file and to extract it for the user. Backups become more complicated as well.