Powerpoint 2016 files on network shares

[tg12]

Hi all,

 

Losing sanity over this issue, so thought I'd post this here to either see if my suspicions are correct or if there's a solution out there. We've got our Macs set up using Open Directory which all works well enough. However, we're getting complaints that Powerpoint seems flaky (i.e slow, file corruption, or the application crashes) over the network when saving back to and loading from home folders stored on the Thunderbolt drive attached to the server.

 

For context, the server is a late 2013 Mac Pro running macOS 10.12.6, with a LaCie 2big Thunderbolt 2 drive storing the data. This is connected to the network using two ethernet cables in link aggregate to our core switch. The room is linked to this switch via gigabit fibre, all iMac late 2013 models running 10.12.6 also connected to the switch on gigabit ethernet.

 

Now, one thing that makes me think the use is just not appropriate is because the file sizes are 300+ MB. There's even one I've seen that's 1.2 GB! All with a lot of photos usually dragged into the application and dropped into the slides. A common issue that does seem to happen is that the files lose said photos and leave the placeholders with the rID2 relationship error message.

 

This is something that seems to happen occasionally to files saved locally (not ideal I know but I was pressured for workarounds) which leads me to think, are these files just too big? If not, what can we do better besides getting an even faster storage drive and potentially getting a 10Gbps link in between the server and the switch the clients are on?

 

Thanks!!