Dan Martin

We have a machine in my department that we use as a dump for Ghost images. After a while, we dump all of the images to DVDs to free up some space. The data isn’t critical; it’s mostly just a CYA thing.

It's not unusual to have 160GB to 200GB of images to burn, which of course takes forever.

What I would like to do is automate the burning process as much as possible so we don't have to sit in front of the machine to swap discs every 5 minutes. I'd like to put at least 4 DVD burners in this box and I'd like to find some software that can build a queue for the images to be burned.

Here's how I see it working in my head:
- The software would have a separate queue for each drive
- You drop files in each queue and put a disc in each drive
- It would be nice if it could burn 4 different images all at once, but I realize that’s asking a lot. It would just need to burn disc 1, then disc 2, etc. until it's out of discs in the drives
- After the discs eject, the operator drops a new blank disc into each drive, and the software burns the next file in the queue

The goal of this project isn't necessarily to burn the images faster; the real goal is to prevent us from losing a guy for a day just to back up images. If we had the budget for a Honda Asimo, I'd park one in a chair next to me and have him swap discs all day, but for now, I'm just looking for a nice software package.

Any suggestions? I really couldn't find much with Google. There is plenty of software and hardware that will let me burn the same image to multiple drives, but I can’t find anything designed to burn different images to multiple drives.

I'd even settle for some burning software that I could control from a script…

Thanks!

Dan

Whiskers

I could have swore JJ asked this once before, can't find the thread...But, I would get a cheap USB hard drive and store them there...

stogie1020

Dan, they are not cheap, but may save you $$ in manpower costs.

http://www.rimage.com/products.html

I believe Rimmage may also have Lightscribe version, although I think there was a problem with the labels getting messed up.

Whiskers

Thats for burning the same image or file multiple times, but Dan want to burn many many different files to different discs...The software would need to have some sort of pointer to know what file is next on the list.

stogie1020

It does that too.

They can span, or just fill a DVD with data, then start on the next DVD and fill it, then load the next...

Dan Martin

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

I actually looked at Rimage when I was googling, but I didn't know it could span. Still, I have a feeling I'll be facing an uphill battle to try to get budget to buy one. I'm trying to keep this as simple (and cheap) as possible.

If there's a very simple burning package out there that can be controlled by a script, I'll whip together a little app to give it the functionality that I need.

That's exactly what I do for my personal files at home. I just have a SATA to USB adapter and I use regular hard drives. I write my stuff to the drive then put it in the safe. It saves a lot of time...

Unfortunately, I have to use DVD's at work because of how we store and use these Ghost images. If we ever have to recover a file that is on the image, we typically just send the DVD out to the user and PC Anywhere into his machine to do the recovery. I guess we could store the files on a hard drive, then burn the images as needed, but we have a good system for managing the DVDs and old habits die hard.

stogie1020

Here you go Dan. Better solution than the Rimage...

http://www.fernico.com/farlite.html


From the description

• File Splitting: Any single large file, either a DD image or a CCTV video clip, can be spanned to a series of DVDs automatically. The disc set can be read in any ROM reader without the need for a proprietary reader and has integral pre and post MD5 verification across each disc and the global file. Included with the disc set is a standalone application which will recreate the original file structure.

Dan Martin

It's not really a matter of having large files split across multiple discs, the images are already split into 2GB chunks by Ghost. One person may need 3 or more 2GB files, depending on the amount of data on their drive. These files would need to be burned on to 2 DVDs, but to further complicate things, we can only have one user's image files on a DVD, even if there's enough room to put two images on a disc.

I know it's kind of an unusual situation... but this is also kind of an unusual place.

studville

What if you put "x amount" of DVD burners in that box and controlled it via PC Anywhere? I know, this is not a solution... but it's better than having to get up and go to the machine each time to swap out discs.

stogie1020

Not sure about leaving empty space and then moving no to the next person's "job".

I am in computer forensics, and lots of people use these DVD robots to archive 2GB chunks of DD, EO1 or FTK images, two to a disk. I may have 300GB of image files in 640MB or 2GB chunks, and the robot will keep burning untill the job is done or the DVDs run out. Not sure how to tel it to skip to then next DVD though, if the current one has room.

Other options:
1. Hire an A+ tech intern for cheep to burn the archive DVDs
2. Ultrium 200/400 tape, just tell everyone its the "new" dvd, and restore as needed.

Dan Martin

The box does have PC Anywhere on it, but it just has the one drive for now. Since I've convinced everyone that it's a pain in the ass, we're going to put more burners in the box, but I just thought I'd look for software in the mean time.

Thanks for the suggestion though. We're on the same wavelength if nothing else pops up.

We've been pushing for an intern for a while now for exactly this reason. There are a ton of jobs around here that would be perfect for one...
All of our servers are backed up to Ultrium tapes, but this stuff has to go on DVD. I won't be able to convince them to put it on any other media. I wouldn't be surprised if the manager has TDK stock...


Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I'll let you guys know what I ended up with...

AMGala

iTrader: (4)

Just in addition to all of these suggestions, maybe another good suggestion to cut down on the # of discs and number of times you need to change them is to use dual layer discs, that is, if you aren't already using them. That way you can fit more data onto a disc, and therefore have to change discs less frequently.