Acquiring data files across the network

Issue

Customer would like to acquire data files on the lab server instead of the local (MSHost) machine.  Customer can get Xcalibur to point to the network path, and the acquisition works fine.  Is this acceptable?

Environment

• Xcalibur-operated MS instruments
• LCQuan 2.5 and later

Resolution

This is not an acceptable configuration.

Acquisition to a non-local drive is not supported or recommended.  Xcalibur will attempt to acquire to any path you can enter into a sequence, but network access is variable and acquisition will not tolerate variable access.  If the network slows down because another user is transferring a big file it can result in your acquisition halting due to a DMA (Direct Memory Access) or other failure.  

Instead we recommend that you acquire to the local drive and transfer the files to a network location afterwards. See Data Back Up - TraceFinder or Xcalibur for a possible automated solution. 

LCquan 2.5 and later: 

(Note that LCquan is a discontinued product, version 3.0 for Foundation 3.1 will be the last release).

LCquan acquires reliably to any drive you can reach and have permission to write to.  The trouble described above are dealt with by acquiring locally then rewriting to the remote drive as a secondary process.  These two steps are transparent to the user.  The appearance to the user is that LCQuan 2.5 is acquiring to the remote drive.  

Refer to Remote acquisition with LCquan 2.5 and later versions.