- NexSysIT Editorial Team
- 23 Sep 2026
- 12 min read
Cloud Storage for Architecture Firms: What Works With Revit, and What Only Looks Like It Does
Every cloud storage product will hold a Revit file. Almost none of them will let two people work in it at once, and that single distinction is the whole subject of this guide. Architects and engineers keep buying secure, well-priced, scalable storage that’s designed specifically for documents and project management, discovering the difference at the worst possible moment, and then buying again. This is the guide we wish someone had handed those practices first.
We’re the team at NexSys that builds ALTO, our cloud platform built for AEC workloads, so read the last option below with that in mind. Our engineers spent years at Norman Disney & Young and Tetra Tech building SD-WAN and virtual desktops across the UK, Canada and Asia Pacific. The other four options are described as fairly as we can manage, and two of them are the right answer for a lot of practices.
Why Revit and AutoCAD files break the cloud storage for architects that works for everyone else
A sync service, which is what OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive all are, keeps a copy of each file on each machine and reconciles the copies afterwards. Ideal for a fee proposal. Fine for an Excel spreadsheet, or a set of AutoCAD files nobody references, and the integration with the rest of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace is real for those file types. A workshared Revit model is the opposite: one central file, and a local copy on each workstation that synchronises with central constantly while people work. Two sync clients each trying to be the truth for the same central file produce conflicts, duplicate copies and, eventually, a corrupt model, and Autodesk’s knowledge base says so in as many words when asked whether a cloud-synced service gives an experience similar to worksharing on a local network: the answer would be no.
AutoCAD has the same problem in a milder form. External references stored on SharePoint aren’t found unless every referenced file has been downloaded locally, which Autodesk also documents, so a survey drawing with forty xrefs either works because someone synced the whole project or fails because they didn’t. Add Microsoft’s 400-character path limit and the sync client’s 300,000-item guidance, and a document platform reveals itself as a document platform, whatever the operating system.
A CDE is not a project file server for project management, and you probably need both
The confusion that costs practices the most money is between two things that both get called “the cloud”, and the integration between them is where an IT strategy either works or doesn’t. A common data environment, in the ISO 19650 sense, is where information moves through work in progress, shared, published and archive states with gates and an audit trail: Autodesk Construction Cloud, Aconex, ProjectWise, 12d Synergy. A project file server is where the live central model, the linked files, the point clouds and the renders sit while the team is working on them. Autodesk’s cloud worksharing puts the central model inside the CDE, and for a practice fully on that platform the two collapse into one, but for everyone else they’re different jobs, and buying a CDE to be a file server, or a file server to be a CDE, is how a practice ends up with three platforms and a shared drive. The ISO 19650 guide covers the CDE side, and this guide covers the file server side.
The five cloud storage options architects actually choose between, from Google Drive to a NAS
Option one is the on-premise NAS or server, and it’s fast and paid for. A central model on a wired local network is exactly what Autodesk designed worksharing for. It fails the day the practice gets a second office, a site shed or three people working from home, because worksharing over a VPN works badly and corrupts occasionally, and it fails harder when the backup turns out to be a folder on the same box. Synology’s own research puts backups as the first target in 94 per cent of ransomware attacks, and the NAS comparison goes through it.
Option two is Microsoft 365, SharePoint and OneDrive, which every practice already pays for, or Google Drive for the studios on Google Workspace, and the functionality is the same for this purpose. Right for documents, with permissions and sharing the whole practice already understands, wrong for models for the reasons above, and the practices that make it work are the ones that never open a central model. The SharePoint comparison covers where the edges are.
Option three is a cloud file platform with a cache appliance. A box in each office caches the cloud, and Revit worksharing runs against the box. You’re now running a small server per office with a support contract.
Option four is Autodesk’s cloud worksharing through Autodesk Construction Cloud, where the central model lives in Autodesk’s cloud and every local copy syncs to it. This is the right answer for a lot of practices, and we’ll say that plainly despite selling something else. It’s priced per user through the BIM Collaborate Pro subscription on top of Revit, it depends on the project team all being on the platform, and everything that isn’t a Revit model, which is most of a project’s data by volume, still needs somewhere to live.
Option five is a cloud platform built for AEC workloads, which is what ALTO is: project storage and compute in one place sized for high-concurrency BIM modelling and large data transfer, served to every office and site without a VPN, with storage tiers chosen for modelling responsiveness, project-level segmentation, role-based access permissions, and an immutable backup isolated from the primary workloads. It replaces the NAS, the file server and the VPN rather than the CDE. Not the CDE. It’s the option for a practice that has outgrown one room and wants the models and the rest of the project data in one location, under one set of controls, rather than in different folders on different platforms for people in different locations.
What to look for in cloud storage for architects: eight features that matter for CAD and BIM
Standard cloud storage often fails with large architectural files, which is why a whole category of specialised products now markets itself to AEC firms. Strip the marketing away and the features that decide whether a product works for a design practice come down to eight.
File locking, so two people can’t overwrite the same shared drawing, and the locking has to be global across offices rather than per device. Version control that manages revisions automatically, because it prevents conflicts and duplicated effort on a collaborative project. Simultaneous access to design models, which for Revit means worksharing against one central file, not two people opening copies. Local caching or serving, because large files open faster from a cache or a served volume than from a download, and a product without either will feel slow on every model. Granular access permissions for sharing with consultants and builders, since permission-based access is what keeps collaboration secure. Encryption and two-factor authentication, because a practice’s drawings are its intellectual property. Integration with AEC design tools, meaning Revit, AutoCAD and the CDE, not just Office. And multi-site support, for practices managing several offices and project sites at once.
The vendors each lead with a different one. CentreStack pitches permission-based access and support for AutoCAD and PDF files. FileCloud advertises enterprise-grade security with 2FA and encryption, AutoCAD previews inside its secure environment, and integrations with third-party apps. Folderit accepts single files up to 90 GB and 256-bit encryption for archived documents. All of those are real, and all of them are about storing and sharing files. Check each against the eight above, and against the one question on a Revit practice’s list that none of their pages answers: can the team workshare a central model through it from two locations? Cloud storage does give access to files from any device, anywhere, and real-time collaboration for remote teams. It’s the Revit part where the specialised products separate from the rest.
One more, because it’s the one we see skipped. Cybersecurity is the tool most architecture firms overlook until too late, and sensitive project documents, especially on government, health and defence work, have to be stored in environments that meet the client’s rules. That includes data residency, which the residency section below comes back to.
Sizing it for large digital files: the numbers a practice should have before it talks to anyone
Three numbers decide the solution, and most architects don’t have them, because the large digital files that fill an AEC archive, point clouds, renders, VR walkthroughs and federated models, don’t show up in a document count. The first is the size of the largest live model, because Autodesk’s Revit 2026 requirements ask for 64 GB or more of memory for large models and 100 GB of free disk for temporary files alone, and a storage tier that can’t feed that model quickly is slow for everyone. The second is total project data, live and archived, because the archive is usually three to five times the live set and it’s what makes a per-terabyte price hurt. The third is the number of people who touch project data from outside the main office in a normal week, because if it’s more than two, the NAS is already the wrong tool and the question is which of the other four.
Here’s the view some vendors would argue with: most practices should size for the archive and price for the live set, and the products that make that hard are the ones to avoid. A platform that charges the same per terabyte for a 2019 project nobody opens as for this month’s central model is charging you for the wrong thing.
Residency, backup and the questionnaire
Whichever option you choose, two questions now arrive with every government tender and most Tier 1 ones, and contractors and infrastructure clients ask them as often as the public sector does. Where is the data held, including the replicas and the backups, given the South Australian Cyber Security Framework’s supplier guideline asks providers to state it and the 2024 Western Australian policy requires incident reporting within 24 hours. And can a compromised account delete the backup along with the data? The Essential Eight at Maturity Level Two asks for backups that unprivileged accounts can’t modify or delete, and the Australian Signals Directorate’s 2024–25 report puts the average self-reported cost of a cybercrime for a medium business at $97,200, up 55 per cent in a year. A sync service’s recycle bin is not the answer to either question, and a NAS with its backup on the same network isn’t either.
Where to start with cloud storage for architects
A caveat first. If you’re a two-to-five person studio on Revit LT or solo files, with no worksharing and projects of a few thousand files, SharePoint and OneDrive will carry you and none of the rest of this applies yet. Call someone when the first shared central model arrives.
For everyone else: get the three numbers. Decide if you’re a CDE practice, a file server practice or both. Then pick from the five with the vendors’ own documentation open, and treat the software’s performance on your largest model as the test that matters, not the feature list. If you already run a central model over a VPN, that’s the first thing to fix, whichever option you land on, because Autodesk’s guidance is that the local copy and the central file belong in the same location and the corruption is a matter of when. The trial for ALTO is four weeks with full access and no contracts, and the honest way to use it is to move one live project and see, which is the test we’d apply to any of the five.
- Written by
Written and reviewed by the NexSys engineers, design technology specialists and consultants who build and support IT for architecture, engineering and construction firms across Australia. Every price, rule and vendor statement is checked against its source on the date shown.
- Why Revit and AutoCAD files break the cloud storage for architects that works for everyone else
- A CDE is not a project file server for project management, and you probably need both
- The five cloud storage options architects actually choose between, from Google Drive to a NAS
- What to look for in cloud storage for architects: eight features that matter for CAD and BIM
- Sizing it for large digital files: the numbers a practice should have before it talks to anyone
- Residency, backup and the questionnaire
- Where to start with cloud storage for architects
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