What's the best way to version control graphical assets on Windows?

Question

I'm a web developer / designer, and I want to be able to version control graphic files (Photoshop / Fireworks / Illustrator / Stock Photos / etc).

This would normally be fine but some of the files I have tip the scales at around 800MB, which TortoiseHG chokes on. I currently have a server I put all my files on so all my computers can access (it's my work computer and I have some flexibility as to installing some linux packages).

Any advice on the best way to go about this would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Unless those graphic files changes every day, a better way to store them would be to:

• avoid VCS (CVCS like SVN or DVCS like Git or Mercurial): those are made to keep the history of elements, with the possibility to compare with older versions.
  You rarely need that with graphic files.

• use a generic repository (i.e. a shared directory with naming convention of tagging feature, not one with branching and merging like a VCS).
  I generally use a maven-based repo like Nexus.
  I then store in the VCS a text file which will contain the exact label of the artifacts (in your case the "set of graphic files") referenced in the Nexus repository. That text file also include a MD5 checksum.

That solution allows your repositories (both the VCS one and the artifact one) to scala nicely together.