Returning to imatch

[goldenpsp]

Hey all,

I used to use imatch quite awhile ago (I found my old imatch files from 2011? for imatch 3.6). I kind of drifted away from photography with a busy life and family.  But I'm getting renewed interest with a new camera and a daughter with an interest in starting photography.

I'm sure lots has changed and I don't even remember all of the details.  Unfortunately the match product page seems to be broken so I figured I would bounce a couple technical questions here.

First, I've been using a NAS to store all of our photos etc for the last few years.  I'd like to leave them there for easy access.  If I recall that shouldn't be an issue as imatch can handle the files being stored pretty much anywhere.

I would probably be looking at multi user access however this time around.  My wife switched from Mac to PC and with my daughter being interested I would expect both of them would have interest in managing the database as well.  I gather from reading that if they only care about viewing the match anywhere would fit the bill.

If they want full access I assume that would be an imatch license per machine?
Can the database also be stored centrally on a NAS or would it have to reside on one computer and shared out?
Does imatch handle multi user ok?  To be fair I highly doubt that we would all be changing metadata at the same time very often or at all.

Thanks

[Mario]

Hi,

what do you mean with "IMatch product page broken"?.
I just checked and the photools.com web site is operating normally. Did so for the past 200 days.
Anything specific I should look at (URL?)

https://www.photools.com

NAS...

No problem, but performance may be an issue obviously during the initial indexing phase. A NAS is about 1000 times slower than a local disk or SSD.
See these knowledge base articles for some additional info:

IMatch and NAS storage

Configuring Process Control for Slow Media (CD-ROM, DVD, NAS, ...)

Tip: I found these by just searching for the term NAS on the photools.com web site. Tons of other useful articles in the KB.

Tip: You can download the IMatch 5 help file from https://www.photools.com/download/ if you want to learn about IMatch 5 before downloading and installing. Right at the top of the help file you'll find the "For IMatch 3 Users" help topic which is recommended for users who only know the legacy IMatch 3 edition.

Can the database also be stored centrally on a NAS or would it have to reside on one computer and shared out?

This depends on your NAS. Usually performance for databases on NAS is very bad, unless you have a high-performance pro-grade NAS system.
A PC with a 50 bucks SSD can serve an IMatch database 100 to 1000 times faster than a typical NAS.

I would probably be looking at multi user access however this time around.  My wife switched from Mac to PC and with my daughter being interested I would expect both of them would have interest in managing the database as well.  I gather from reading that if they only care about viewing the match anywhere would fit the bill.
If they want full access I assume that would be an imatch license per machine?
Does imatch handle multi user ok?  To be fair I highly doubt that we would all be changing metadata at the same time very often or at all.

Check out the IMatch Anywhere add-on for IMatch, which is designed to give multiple users access to IMatch databases, remotely and from any device.

https://www.photools.com/imatch-anywhere/

[goldenpsp]

When I click on products -imatch I get URL not found \imatch\

[Mario]

Aah, I see.
A broken link, caused by a recent change I did in preparation for the upcoming version.
All fixed now. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.