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Currently we’ve got a network folder where 10 graphic designers save their work. We use this drive to open the files, work on them and save them one by one. More often than not, our files become corrupt and can no longer open in Illustrator. We have a feeling it’s the network drive at fault, and perhaps two or more people trying to access the same file at times, with network latencies and race conditions in creation of lock files etc. How best can we go about sharing our work with others without having to run into this issue? Is there a Git style tool for designers? Will creative cloud / collaboration help in our case? Any other suggestions?

Edit: My question is largely around avoidance of file-corruption, that seems to occur more often than not, due to perhaps the lock file not being saved or read by one machine in time, before it overwrites an existing lock. I have read Adobe's recommendation on this and they advise against using network-drives, yet this seems to be common practice at several organizations. I'm looking for more of a solution for not just being able to share work across machines, but more specifically, ensuring that the work does not end up corrupt and is following perhaps some unspoken common practice amongst other designers.

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    Possible duplicate of Are there any platforms on which we can keep our Psd's and AI file safe and also for sharing purpose?
    – Luciano
    Oct 16, 2019 at 8:34
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    I think this isn't actually a duplicate of that question, albeit true it's directly related, as here OP's emphasis is on the data security and specifically avoidance of file corruption / simultaneous access issues. Some of the responses to that other question definitely obtain, but this is different enough I think to warrant remaining a separate question and answer pair. This is me putting back on my IT Manager for architecture and creatives firms hat, BTW.
    – GerardFalla
    Oct 16, 2019 at 17:17
  • At my job we are 3 designers working on the same file server. We avoid working on the same files as it creates chaos. I wouldn't want people to change stuff I just made. I don't understand how you can keep control of what's happening if more designers are working on the same file. I mean not from a technical viewpoint, but from an organizational viewpoint..
    – Wolff
    Oct 18, 2019 at 15:02

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Why don't you actually use GitHub?

GitHub already supports viewing PSD's (you can still use it for backing up AI files) and you can also have a free private repository with up to 3 contributors.

Just set up git to automatically commit on change.

There are multiple resources, I've linked a couple below;

From what I could tell, this can be set up on Mac, you will have to do some more work for Windows though.

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    The primary issue is of how Git stores things. Having big print quality resources in Git is wasteful. Other version control systems handle this better.
    – joojaa
    Oct 18, 2019 at 4:24
  • Anyway LFS addon for git is ok but not best possible one
    – joojaa
    Oct 18, 2019 at 4:26
  • I see it doesn’t show diffs of Illustrator documents though. The files can also be huge. Is that a show stopper at all?
    – strangetimes
    Oct 20, 2019 at 22:37
  • Just be careful with uploading fonts to public git repos. Consider setting up a local git server. Even some NAS servers can run git.
    – AAGD
    Oct 22, 2019 at 14:08

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