[ale] Backup large files to span DVDs

[Steve Litt]

On Tue, 27 Oct 2015 08:02:39 -0700
Alex Carver <agcarver+ale at acarver.net> wrote:

> Ok, Google is failing me today.  I've got some large files (larger
> than 5GB each) that I need to archive to DVD so I'll have to span
> DVDs.  The problem is I can't seem to find the appropriate magic
> incantations to accomplish this.

You've gotten a bunch of great answers to the question of how to split
files. Another aspect is how to pack them onto DVDs. For instance, that
last file of each split will be smaller than the DVD capacity, and if
you have some files that are naturally smaller than the DVD capacity,
you need to pack them too.

I once wrote a Ruby program to perform a backtracking algorithm to find
the very tightest way to pack files. That's the tightest alternative,
but years later, I found myself loathe to modify that program (when Ruby
changed versions) because it was so complicated. A slightly less
efficient, but *much* simpler algorithm is to keep on writing the
biggest file that will fit in the remaining space. This is especially
good if you have lots of files of widely varying space.

> 
> The file image and burning tools tools available are genisoimage and
> wodim (unfortunately no mkisofs or cdrecord, thanks Debian).

Wodim is just the new name for cdrecord. 

I wasn't aware Debian didn't offer mkisofs. I used Wheezy til I
dumpstered it in favor of Void two weeks ago, and I *know* it had
growisofs, because I used growisofs every time I did a Blu-ray backup.


SteveT

Steve Litt 
October 2015 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive