Relocating Analytics "C:\HD Witness Media" Directory

Completed

Steve McBride

July 03, 2025 05:46

After many hours of searching the net and reading articles that start out looking like what I am chasing only to find, I am still no closer to finding out how to do the following…

By default, NXwitness is using C:\HD Witness Media as the location for the "Analytics DB Storage", but we want that directory location to be pointing at a SAN instead of the local disk. I have tried using a mapped drive letter to the SAN which lets Windows Explorer see “S:\HD Witness Media” but NXwitness will not accept that as a valid address when trying to add it in the server portal. 

If I instead use \\<SAN-IPaddress>\VolumeName\HD Witness Media  it adds it but only as a video file storage, likewise \\<SAN-Name>\VolumeName\HD Witness Media , again it tries to use it for video storage. 

I've found articles saying edit registry but no luck on that front, surely somewhere there is a simple way of telling it I do not want to use the C: drive for the \HD Witness Media directory to hold Analytics DB Storage and give me the option to select some other drive location. Any tips to end my frustration are most welcome. Thanks. 

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  Norman

  • Network Optix team

  July 03, 2025 08:19

  Hi Steve McBride,

  The analytics database cannot be assigned to network-connected storage. For more details, please refer to this section of the in-client manual.

  While performance considerations play a role, the primary reason this configuration isn't supported is due to how the SQLite database manages file operations. SQLite depends on advanced file system features such as file locking, which may not function reliably on certain network storage solutions. This can often lead to severe, irrecoverable database corruption.

  We support your choise about not using the operating system drive for the analytics database. As a best practice, we recommend using a local SSD or NVMe drive. These offer significantly better performance than traditional HDDs or network-based storage and will provide the most stable and responsive experience.

  Additionally, if you plan to use network storage for other media, we advise against mounting it via the operating system. Instead, add it directly to the VMS using the native SMB configuration. This avoids unnecessary OS-level overhead and improves performance and reliability.

  With kind regards.

   

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