Get a nice new certified CAD mobile workstation, put a trusted, much used, deployment of Autodesk AEC Collection Apps (AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit, Navisworks etc) on it and all appears fine until...
- Go to open a small (26mb) Revit structural project file from Autodesk Construction Cloud and it takes 30-35 minutes.
- Ask multiple users in the same, and different, environment to open it and they wait the expected <1 minute.
- Try my logon, works fine on my machine, on the new machine and the file open takes 30-35 minutes.
- Open local files, seems ok!
- Do the usual troubleshooting, reinstall, patches, disable add-ons, clear or reset cloud/application caches, temp files, no improvement
- Totally remove (including 60+ Autodesk extension/component installs left after the script that installed the deployment had uninstalled the main apps) and reinstall, no different.
- Talk to Autodesk Cloud support, no problem with cloud project, user account or permissions, send them some Revit journals.
Given it's related to the hardware watch/disable firewalls, antivirus (we use Windows Defender) and monitor processor, disk and port activity. Revit goes to the cloud, downloads the actual files in a few seconds and just sits there... not even really thinking about much.
Get a second identical machine, put just a vanilla single Revit install, using a new download installer, on it with no add-ons and it is identical.
Then, a few days later, I found a support doc Autodesk had just published (which I suspect was related to our case) and, soon after, got this reply:
I can confirm that the behaviour you’ve encountered aligns with a known issue we’ve recently identified, where storage disk sector sizes greater than 4 KB can cause significant performance delays and instability in Revit when opening files hosted on Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) or when interacting with certain elements such as Steel Connections.
This issue has now been documented in the Autodesk support article you referenced:
Slow performance or crash when opening a file or interacting with steel connection elements in Revit
Root cause:
- The HP ZBook Power 16 G11 machines were configured with a default sector size of 32 KB, which exceeds the supported 4 KB sector size Revit expects for optimal performance.
Resolution:
- Reconfiguring the storage device to use a 4 KB sector size immediately resolves the performance issue, as confirmed in your testing.
Next Steps / Recommendations:
- I recommend proactively applying this disk configuration change to any new HP ZBook deployments intended for Revit and ACC workflows.
- If possible, it would also be beneficial to share this feedback with HP regarding the default disk configuration on this model series.
- We are notifying our Autodesk product and partner teams about this hardware compatibility point, and your case will contribute to rising broader awareness internally.
Thank you once again for your thorough testing and for sharing your findings it’s been a tremendous help.
The difference between 30-35 minutes and less than one minute to open that file? One number in the Windows Registry!
