roll1234

Q: file storage on DVD size

Does anyone know of a program or app that:

 

Can look at a directory with a multitude of files, and

automatically select the appropriate files based on the space available on a backup DVD?

 

I take lots of videos and and up with many files. I want to burn those files to DVDs to maintain a backup. I also want to optimize the space that those backups take on a DVD, e.g. want to be as close to 4.7 G as possible to not waste space.

The program I envision looks at the directory of files to backup, then selects a number of files that together make up 4.7 G (or as close as possible) without having to do the selection myself which is prone to error and long delays.

 

Any help appreciated.

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Aug 6, 2016 8:23 AM

Close

Q: file storage on DVD size

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by poikkeus1,Helpful

    poikkeus1 poikkeus1 Aug 6, 2016 5:06 PM in response to roll1234
    Level 4 (1,522 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 6, 2016 5:06 PM in response to roll1234

    I'm not aware of any applications that do this.

     

    Roxio Toast is a flexible burning tool, and you can choose the amount of video you want to put in your backup on the fly.  Assuming you're dealing with a data DVD, add enough videos to equal about 4.3G, and burn.

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Aug 6, 2016 10:43 AM in response to roll1234
    Level 10 (139,475 points)
    iLife
    Aug 6, 2016 10:43 AM in response to roll1234

    Just bear in mind that Optical Media is going the way of the Floppy Disk and soon only external drives will be available, and after that, they will be hard to gauge. That, along with the noted instability of many DVD makes means you might want to consider an alternative back up and archiving solution.

  • by Rudegar,

    Rudegar Rudegar Aug 6, 2016 10:48 AM in response to roll1234
    Level 7 (28,334 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 6, 2016 10:48 AM in response to roll1234

    optical media is more stable way of backing up than floppy discs but other than that everything else is better

    usb sticks, external hd's.....

  • by Allan Eckert,

    Allan Eckert Allan Eckert Aug 6, 2016 10:55 AM in response to roll1234
    Level 9 (53,418 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 6, 2016 10:55 AM in response to roll1234

    I think the chances of someone writing an app to do what you want is right up there with a snowball in you know where. As your other replies have said the life of the optical drives is rapidly ending. So why would someone write for a dying technology.

     

    As I see there are two major drawbacks to your proposed backup solution. The first is the slow speed of optical drives. Anything else would be faster. The other is the huge problem of cataloging all of the media so that you can find something in a reasonable amount of time.

  • by MichelPM,Solvedanswer

    MichelPM MichelPM Aug 6, 2016 1:11 PM in response to roll1234
    Level 6 (13,626 points)
    iPad
    Aug 6, 2016 1:11 PM in response to roll1234

    You can always use a data compression app like Stuffit Deluxe to compress data before burning it to optical media.

     

    http://my.smithmicro.com/stuffit-deluxe-mac.html

     

    Also, despite what everyone is telling you, yes, optical drives and media are getting rarer, but you can still find new optical drives and media online.

    Plus, if you burn the discs at a slower speed  the data pits burned into the dye layers will stay A LOT longer in the dye medium of the disc.

    Use CD/DVD R discs for archiving only. Stay away from using rewriteable optical discs for data archiving.

    Optical discs when burned slow and atored in a cool location will keep the data on them a lot longer than on a hard drive that can fail at any time.

    The length of time data stays on quality optical media varies, but is is stated, at least between 10-25 years.

    Some optical media has been stated to keep data stored on them for up to 50 years.

    I STILL DO archive/save data to optical media. While it takes more discs and time, these are much easier to store than having multiple, bulky hard drives stacking up around your Mac OR having a collection of large data storage size USB flash drives lying around, which are just as notorious for only keeping data saved to them for, possibly, a shorter time than storing data on hard drives or on more robust SSDs.

    Optical discs are really the only long-term option for archiving data and, unfortunately, there is no other form of digital data archiving media being produced or developed for long term data storage.

    To date, optical media is it!!

    There has been nothing, NOTHING new developed for long term data storage.

    Optical media IS STILL THE ONLY AVAILABLE media for long term data storage.

    Having to keep purchasing multiple, extra hard drives, in anticipation of a hard drive failures,  is  NOT a practical or efficient method of retaining data long-term.

    AND SSDs are too new and unproven as long term data storage, either.

  • by roll1234,

    roll1234 roll1234 Aug 6, 2016 5:05 PM in response to MichelPM
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 6, 2016 5:05 PM in response to MichelPM

    Thank you all, I know the storage medium is on its way out BUT I agree with MichelPM 100%. The reason I store those files on DVDs is that I have had HDs, USBs, etc. quit on me, Irretrievably loosing data I did not want to loose. I have those files on HD already, I just want to have one more level of security.

  • by roll1234,

    roll1234 roll1234 Aug 6, 2016 5:07 PM in response to poikkeus1
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 6, 2016 5:07 PM in response to poikkeus1

    Thank you.

  • by roll1234,

    roll1234 roll1234 Aug 6, 2016 5:09 PM in response to Allan Eckert
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 6, 2016 5:09 PM in response to Allan Eckert

    Thank you. See my reply to MichelPM.

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Aug 6, 2016 5:11 PM in response to roll1234
    Level 5 (5,845 points)
    Mac App Store
    Aug 6, 2016 5:11 PM in response to roll1234

    FWIW, aside from what storage media might be best, there is no such app that will do what you want. Such an app would need to apply linear programming techniques. You could in theory find a solution using MatLab ($2k+) or Sage (free). It would no doubt a be project that would take longer to set up than doing it manually by trial and error.

     

    Depending on the number of files you are dealing with, I would just back the files up to a drive.