my download folder now has 18gig of Poser files which are basically the download files. some are in other directories such as DAZ, Rendo, RDNA, etc.

Is there an easy way to divide these into 4.5 gig chunks to be saved on DVD ?

Its pretty difficult to divide them up by adding up the folder sizes, etc. I can drag and drop to my burn program until the DVD is full, but that gets tricky too, depending on the folder sizes and remembering which ones in a sequence you left off because they were too large and so forth.

The way I do it is to create some folders, each to contain 4 gigs of files
then copy from your download folder until you have enough
once burned to disc that folder can be deleted

last time I did a bulk save I set folder view to  by name and just kept track of what the last file burnt was. It does waste some space if some of your files are really big .

Some backup utilities will span disks if you do the whole thing at one time , my burner does not seem to have that option

it would be great if there was an app that you could tell to figure out folder sizes that equal 4.4 gig , for instance ... then burn those and move them somewhere else so they're out of the total for the next selection/

I use an external hard disk pack :: it is a terabyte = 1000 (or 1024?) gigabyte.

 I divided my Runtime onto two 9-gig DVDs: Geometries and textures on one; lights, cr2s, face, hair etc on the other. In theory, you could give each Runtime "subfolder" its own DVD. As long as you reassemble them in relation to each other, everything will work great. 

"it would be great if there was an app that you could tell to figure out folder sizes that equal 4.4 gig , for instance ... then burn those and move them somewhere else so they're out of the total for the next selection/" 

Googled folder split size dvd - maybe one of these works - didn't look at them too closely :-)

http://frederic.jeanmougin.free.fr/Software/SizeMove/

http://bttb.sourceforge.net/                      (says it does DVDs in latest version)

Quote - I wonder if butterflies get frustrated by their flight path

Butterflies probably fly in that dancing way to confuse anything trying to grab tghem in flight. Moths, which fly at night when predators can't see, fly without dancing.

both of these sound quite promising. I'll give them a shot tonight.

thanks.
I googles quite a bit prior to posting here...but you need to google the right phrase :)

Quote - "it would be great if there was an app that you could tell to figure out folder sizes that equal 4.4 gig , for instance ... then burn those and move them somewhere else so they're out of the total for the next selection/" 

Googled folder split size dvd - maybe one of these works - didn't look at them too closely :-)

http://frederic.jeanmougin.free.fr/Software/SizeMove/

http://bttb.sourceforge.net/                      (says it does DVDs in latest version)

Quote - my download folder now has 18gig of Poser files which are basically the download files. some are in other directories such as DAZ, Rendo, RDNA, etc.

Is there an easy way to divide these into 4.5 gig chunks to be saved on DVD ?

Its pretty difficult to divide them up by adding up the folder sizes, etc. I can drag and drop to my burn program until the DVD is full, but that gets tricky too, depending on the folder sizes and remembering which ones in a sequence you left off because they were too large and so forth.

That's the way I have always done, and I can agree that it's a royal PITA to do.

Which is why I invested in several larger external hard drives and have backed up the same files to each one. I figure if one fails, the files are on the other one.

Not to mention it's a pain to have to locate anything when you are looking from DVD to DVD. Much easier looking at them all in one place.

Quote - Not to mention it's a pain to have to locate anything when you are looking from DVD to DVD.

The simple answer to that is to keep a text file and add a directory listing each time you burn a disc.
You can then just search to find a particular file and the disc that it's on.

but its hard to set up a text file when there's 3000 files or more :)
It would take me 10 years to type it up ... or is there a way to print out the files or something ?
screen grab won;t work becasue the list is too long to show all on screen ... OK...maybe 3 pages, but I'm cheap :)

open a Dos box, goto the folder and type

DIR > Files.txt

instant text file file list.

DOS ?
Wow...it fell way back in the recesses of my mind :)

Quote - open a Dos box, goto the folder and type

DIR > Files.txt

instant text file file list.

still got it's uses ;)

Quote - open a Dos box, goto the folder and type

DIR > Files.txt

instant text file file list.

And also

DIR >> Files.txt

will append to the file.

Quote - open a Dos box, goto the folder and type

DIR > Files.txt

instant text file file list.

Interesting! I did not know that!  Thanks for the information!

I'll let y'all hone your Googling skills :-) but a search for DVD or CD cataloging freeware utility should yield something. I'm almost positive there are apps that will create and maintain a database of removable disk contents for as many as you have. Instant search and bam you know that File X is on Disk 23 in folder yada yada. Probably included in some backup software.

With the amount of data that I need to backup lately, DVDs (even double-sided 8.2 GB) are too small.  My last backup would have required like 30 DVDs.  No more.  I have a 1TB external HD which is kept sealed in a closet.  For the cost of these, I could always get a second one as a double-secure backup system.  And the speeds (even using USB 2.0) are so much different than the 30+ minutes to write/verify a 4GB DVD that I won't be using DVD for archival backup any longer.  The flexibility (you can simply plug in the drive and copy files to it) is a plus as well.  Maybe when they come out with 250GB optical disc storage... prob'ly not.  ;0)

I'm switching to 1TB Hd's (80-90 bucks, I can fit both desktops C's onto 1) and a external Dock.... little more money, but a feck load easier.

Like Acadia, I back up the same files on two different external hard drives.

You might want to look into Blu-ray burners, you can pick one up these days for a couple of hundred bucks.

In addition to backing up on the two hard drives, I also back up on Blu-ray. I can burn up to 50 GB on a dual layer disc. The disks are a little spendy, so I back up new stuff on DVD's for six months then burn everything to Blu-ray again. I can back up my entire 3D folder with all my programs, projects, everything, on 5 disks,

Coldrake