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Everyone must have a similar problem in splitting up large directories of
directories on external USB drives into DVD-sized (4.7GB) collections for
backup onto DVD media.

How do you backup if you don't move photo & video directories around
manually?

MORE INFORMATION:
I take tons of pictures & videos of the kids & family just like you do.

The files each go in a directory, more or less organized by name.
It's time to back it up to DVD media when the 500GB (or 1TB) disks fill
up.

I can MANUALLY size an arrangement of directories to something less than
4.7 GB, then MOVE that selection to a spot, and then BURN them. After
burning them, I then move them elsewhere, and work on the next set of
file-intensive directories.

(Note: Without moving back and forth, things get confusing really fast.)

All this sizing, arranging, moving, burning, and moving on is tedious.

QUESTION:
Is there freeware out there that can burn an entire collection to
multiple independent DVD disks?

NOTE: A bigger disk isn't a solution (I've been doing that for years).

In article <kbtf4r$p58$>, Brian Hofflinger
<> wrote:

> Everyone must have a similar problem in splitting up large directories of
> directories on external USB drives into DVD-sized (4.7GB) collections for
> backup onto DVD media.

no, definitely not everyone.

dvds are old school and they're a royal pain in the ass. plus with the
size of raw files these days, they don't hold much.

> How do you backup if you don't move photo & video directories around
> manually?

by using software designed to back up, i.e., cloning software. click a
button and a few minutes later, it's done. there's absolutely no need
to move anything at all.

> MORE INFORMATION:
> I take tons of pictures & videos of the kids & family just like you do.

videos are going to take up even more space than photos do which means
dvds are *not* the solution.

> The files each go in a directory, more or less organized by name.
> It's time to back it up to DVD media when the 500GB (or 1TB) disks fill
> up.
>
> I can MANUALLY size an arrangement of directories to something less than
> 4.7 GB, then MOVE that selection to a spot, and then BURN them. After
> burning them, I then move them elsewhere, and work on the next set of
> file-intensive directories.
>
> (Note: Without moving back and forth, things get confusing really fast.)
>
> All this sizing, arranging, moving, burning, and moving on is tedious.

why are you doing the work the computer can easily do without getting
tired or confused?

the computer is there to do work *for* you, not the other way around.

> QUESTION:
> Is there freeware out there that can burn an entire collection to
> multiple independent DVD disks?

roxio toast, but it's a stupid idea to even consider.

> NOTE: A bigger disk isn't a solution (I've been doing that for years).

it's certainly a much better solution than managing hundreds, perhaps
thousands of dvds.

On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:57:54 -0800, Savageduck wrote:

> Why would you want to back up to DVD

I'm an old man. Been burned many times.
I'm dead set against hard disk drives for backup.

It's only because I've lost a LOT of pictures due to
hard disks not only crashing - but the power supplies
going out and losing the proprietary power supplies, etc.

Disks are evil for storage.
DVDs don't need proprietary power supplies.

The problem is sizing a bunch of directories to
4.7GB. It's very slow constantly checking the sizes.

There 'must' be software out there to handle creating
independent 4.7GB directory sets for burning.

On Tue, 1 Jan 2013 03:36:38 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hofflinger
<> wrote:

>On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:57:54 -0800, Savageduck wrote:
>
>> Why would you want to back up to DVD
>
>I'm an old man. Been burned many times.
>I'm dead set against hard disk drives for backup.
>
>It's only because I've lost a LOT of pictures due to
>hard disks not only crashing - but the power supplies
>going out and losing the proprietary power supplies, etc.

My hard drives last for years. And backup hard drives don't serve many
hours and last forever (almost). What are you doing to deserve such
bad luck?

W

On Tue, 1 Jan 2013 03:36:38 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hofflinger
<> wrote:

>On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:57:54 -0800, Savageduck wrote:
>
>> Why would you want to back up to DVD
>
>I'm an old man. Been burned many times.
>I'm dead set against hard disk drives for backup.
>
>It's only because I've lost a LOT of pictures due to
>hard disks not only crashing - but the power supplies
>going out and losing the proprietary power supplies, etc.
>
>Disks are evil for storage.
>DVDs don't need proprietary power supplies.
>
>The problem is sizing a bunch of directories to
>4.7GB. It's very slow constantly checking the sizes.
>
>There 'must' be software out there to handle creating
>independent 4.7GB directory sets for burning.

You could use WinRAR, splitting the archive into predetermined sizes
to fit nicely into the DVDs, AFTER making recovery sets, because DVDs
are prone to suffer bad sectors, and those recovery sets will save
your data in a few years when the dyes in the DVDs start to fade.

W

In article <kbtlk6$91d$>, Brian Hofflinger
<> wrote:

> > Why would you want to back up to DVD
>
> I'm an old man. Been burned many times.

how so?

> I'm dead set against hard disk drives for backup.

suit yourself but that's *very* dumb.

> It's only because I've lost a LOT of pictures due to
> hard disks not only crashing - but the power supplies
> going out and losing the proprietary power supplies, etc.

don't buy crappy drives.

anyway, if you make backups you won't lose anything. that's the whole
*point* of backups. if one drive craps out, you have the photos on a
second and third drive, maybe more if the photos are really important.

also, the power supplies are standard. a given enclosure might have a
custom power adapter, but if that fails, replace the enclosure, not the
drive inside. the drive mechanism is almost guaranteed to be fine if
just the power supply fails.

or, look into cloud storage. let someone else worry about all that.

> Disks are evil for storage.

disks are actually very reliable, much more so than dvd.

plus, what happens if you want to retrieve a photo. which dvd is it on?
which dvd has the latest version of that photo? what if that dvd cannot
be read anymore? what if you want a bunch of photos and they're on a
bunch of different dvds? what a mess.

what happens if your house burns down or some other disaster and those
dvds are gone? are you going to have a *second* set of dvds somewhere
else too? even more of a mess.

and what happens when your computer no longer has a dvd drive, as is
the case with ultrabooks and some desktops? dvds are going the way of
the floppy.

> DVDs don't need proprietary power supplies.

neither do disk drives.

in fact, dvd drives use the *same* power supplies as hard drives,
+5/+12v (or just +5v for the portable drives).

> The problem is sizing a bunch of directories to
> 4.7GB. It's very slow constantly checking the sizes.

it's also a *complete* waste of time. that's the kind of thing a
computer should do *for* you, not you do for it.

> There 'must' be software out there to handle creating
> independent 4.7GB directory sets for burning.

roxio toast, but as i said, it's a really dumb way to go. you are
making *way* more work for yourself.

the proper way to do this is buy a couple of hard drives all the same
size and put all of your photos on one of the drives, using the others
for backup. everything will be in one place rather than scattered among
multiple drives and who knows how many folders. talk about an
organizational nightmare. how do you even find stuff?

manage your photos with something like lightroom. clone the drive as
often as you want to the other hard drives. ideally, you have at least
three copies at any given moment, one of which is off site somewhere in
case your house burns down or other disaster.

On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 20:52:34 -0700, Wally wrote:

> What are you doing to deserve such bad luck?

I'm an old man. Lost much data.

Over time, all electronics go kaput.

And, at the worst time.

You know the rule.

On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 20:43:45 -0800, Savageduck wrote:

> Then you are buying crappy drives. I have been buying and using drive
> of various ages, brands and specifications for some 18 years.

Well, we can argue all day about how much better your disk drives are
than mine - but that won't get us any closer to the answer, will it?

In all respect, what I'm looking for is software that will automatically
do what I'm doing manually.

I'll keep looking through the answers - as I can't be the only one.

In article <kbtu8s$oij$>, Brian Hofflinger
<> wrote:

> > What are you doing to deserve such bad luck?
>
> I'm an old man.

then you want something simple, not something that makes more work for
yourself.

> Lost much data.

the only way you can lose data is if you didn't back it up.

if you were backing it up to dvds, then that's proof dvd backups are a
bad idea. it doesn't work.

> Over time, all electronics go kaput.
>
> And, at the worst time.
>
> You know the rule.

that's why you make backups.

In article <kbtuf7$oij$>, Brian Hofflinger
<> wrote:

> > Then you are buying crappy drives. I have been buying and using drive
> > of various ages, brands and specifications for some 18 years.
>
> Well, we can argue all day about how much better your disk drives are
> than mine - but that won't get us any closer to the answer, will it?

given that almost nobody has as bad luck as you do with drives, it's
very clear that you are either buying crappy drives or doing something
very, very wrong with them to cause them to fail so often.

drives are *very* reliable. there might be a bad batch once in a while
but certainly not an ongoing thing. that's why you have *multiple*
copies at any given moment. in the unlikely event a drive does fail,
you have backup drives.

> In all respect, what I'm looking for is software that will automatically
> do what I'm doing manually.

such software has already been mentioned as well as that it's a dumb
idea.

> I'll keep looking through the answers - as I can't be the only one.

yes you can easily be the only one. nobody wants the insanity you
describe.

there are *significantly* better ways to back up photos that are *much*
more reliable than burning stacks of dvds. how the hell do you even
find anything in those stacks?

do you even *have* a second set of dvds?? do you have anything off site
at all? and think of how much space that must take!!

with multiple hard drives and at least one off site, you are guaranteed
to not lose data unless *all* of the drives fail simultaneously,
something that is *extremely* unlikely to happen.