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
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.
Posted on Aug 6, 2016 1:11 PM