K3b; Spreading a Data Project over Multiple Discs?

[zak89]

I am trying to back up my 70GB's of digital photos to DVD. However, I currently don't own a Blue-Ray drive, so I need to spread it over several discs. I used to do this often in my Windows days with Roxio Creator Classic.

I had thought that this was called "multi-session", but some googling seems to tell me that multi-session means leaving a disc open for further burning. So my question would be, what is the proper term for what I am trying to do? and secondly, how do I do this under linux? Neither K3b or Brasero seem to have any hints for me.

I had thought that, in the past, whenever I tried to fit too many files on a disc k3b would automatically split the file over several discs. However, that certainly isn't happening now. Any hints?

[zak89]

Okay, it appears that K3b does not have this functionality (which I am told is called "spanning"). In fact, none of the established linux CD/DVD burning software does. Very unfortunate. I found two projects that seem to be aiming at my problem. The first, multicd, looks abandoned and lacks documentation. The second looks much more hopefull. It's called discspan (a python script) and it looks like it does just what I need, except that when it tries to actually start burning the first disc, it crashes with the following message:

:-( /dev/sr0: 2295104 blocks are free, 4563438 to be written!
:-( write failed: No space left on device
genisoimage: Broken pipe. cannot fwrite 22528*1

This is with a blank DVD+R in the drive.

Does anyone else have experience with these tools or something similar?

A second best would be a tool that would tar up my directory into DVD sized tarballs. Less than ideal (and rather embarrassing around my Mac and Windows loving friends), but it doesn't look like I have a lot of choices.

[zak89]

Excuse me; does anyone have any ideas?

Unfortunately partimage does not seem to be able to work with directories, only partitions.

So now I am looking at having to create a partition, copy my files onto it, and then use partimage to create 4GB tarballs of the whole thing and burn each one individually to a DVD (about 18 discs)!

I'm starting to envy my dad just a bit. When he drops too many files onto a DVD on his Mac it just starts burning them and then prompts for another disc.

I can hardly believe that K3b lacks this (in my opinion) very basic functionality!

[ken_yap]

Well it's hardly basic functionality. Not everybody backs up tens of GB of data on DVDs.

Maybe you could search to see if someone has written a text utility to take a stream of filenames and to segment the list whenever the running total of file sizes goes over 4GB. This would have the advantage that each DVD is usable as is so you don't lose the whole set if one DVD develops a bad block, as would be the case if you simply split the generated image.

[geoffro]

OT Not sure what they cost where you are but i just bought a lacie 750gb usb drive for the same price as 4 packs of (25) dvds. Enough space to back up your whole system and more durable.

/Geoff

[Rikishi42]

On Saturday 27 December 2008 03:46, zak89 wrote:

> I am trying to back up my 70GB's of digital photos to DVD. However, I
> currently don't own a Blue-Ray drive, so I need to spread it over
> several discs. I used to do this often in my Windows days with Roxio
> Creator Classic.

Even with BR, you'd need more than one disc for 70 GB.

> I had thought that, in the past, whenever I tried to fit too many files
> on a disc k3b would automatically split the file over several discs.
> However, that certainly isn't happening now. Any hints?

Feel free to use a script I wrote for that exact purpose.
It's called xsplit_dvd.py and you can find it on
http://www.rikishi42.net/SkunkWorks/Junk/

It takes files from a source, and moves them to a destination dir,
splitting the dirs in chunks of DVD size.

Use a linked copy as sources, works best.


--
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Douglas Adams

[zak89]

Hey thanks, pal! You're my hero!

I'll post back after I try it out,

[zak89]

Ah, Rikishi42, would you mind giving my an example of the correct syntaxt for this script? I am looking at the source and I am not seeing how I pass the source and destination directories.

Thanks!

[Rikishi42]

On Monday 29 December 2008 02:56, zak89 wrote:

> Ah, Rikishi42, would you mind giving my an example of the correct
> syntaxt for this script? I am looking at the source and I am not seeing
> how I pass the source and destination directories.

Put the script(s) in your "~/bin/".

mkdir work/
cd work
mkdir in/
mkdir out/

Make a link copy of your data in the "in" dir:
cp -vrl originals/* in/
xsplit_dvd.py

The dir work/out/ should contain the output dirs dvd_001, dvd_002, etc...


Notes:
- actually, the script creates out/ itself, if you don't.
- Real Soon Now[R], I'll change the scripts, so they make the links
themselves from the original data.
- several xsplit_... scripts exist, with hardcoded volumes. You can change
the volume yourself. In the future, the volume could be an argument.
- if a file is found that is large than the block volume (a file bigger
than 4.2 GB in you case, of a file biffer than 700 MB with xsplit_cd),
that file is left in "in/" dir.
- The previous point means that "in/" should be empty if everything went
well.




--
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Douglas Adams

[zak89]

Works great! Though I did make an unfortunate mistake and deleted a bunch of the photos, Had an extra backup laying around so I think I'm okay (though I thought I'd faint when I realized what was happening). Now I got all my files ready to backup. Thanks a ton, Rikishi42!

Well it's hardly basic functionality. Not everybody backs up tens of GB of data on DVDs.

Well, true, but I haven't used a CD burning app on Windows that couldn't do this (Windows built-in CD burning excluded).