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Data Storage Software

Media Cataloging Software? 45

Posted by Cliff from the where-are-all-my-files dept.
Rich0 asks: "I have a growing pile of CDs/DVDs holding hundreds of GB of files. I would like a linux-compatible software solution to cataloging and searching these disks. Lots of solutions exist for music/video, but not so many for files. The software should have the ability to easily scan disks: pop in disc; software reads disc; software prompts for a name (with something sensible defaulted); software ejects disc; software tells me what if any label to write/apply to the disc; and software is ready for the next disc. I've seen one or two packages out there but they usually require lots of manual disk labelling, or their search capabilities are limited. Windows-only software won't be of much use to me. What are others using to manage their media collections?"
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Media Cataloging Software? More

Media Cataloging Software?

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  • The answer always is... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @07:11PM (#19601913) Homepage
    ...copy them all to one or two terabyte HDs and be done with it.
    • Once it's on the big disk, spend about $100 on an xbox, and $10 on a duox2gs mod chip. Once it's modded, install the latest XBMC, and use it's media library management database to organize everything for you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by J0nne ( 924579 )
      I agree with this. It's way easier to just put everything on a fileserver (or a NAS, they run Linux too but make less noise), and use locate/Beagle to find your stuff.

      Even if you manage to catalog all the data on your cd's/dvd's, you'll have to keep working on keeping it updated, and it still doesn't allow you to figure out where you left your stuff anyway (did a friend borrow it? did it fall under the sofa?). You can't use locate to find physical items yet, so even if you've catalogued everything, what do
  • Man you use CDs? Really?

    You've mentioned hundreds of gigabytes - that transfers to 999GB of data - this is not THAT much. Actually right now you can get like a PC (with lowest spec - these are not important here) with 4 disks of 500GB capacity each. Use SATA2 devices - they are fastest in cheap range. When you'll get your 4 drives put them into PC. Install OpenSolaris and spawn them into Z-RAID and ZFS - you will get yourself quite cheap storage.

    You will get 1TB of redundant and self-healing data storage. C

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I run Solaris on my file server too but that is not a solution for everyone and I don't consider that safe enough. I don't know why, but everytime the topic of backups comes up, there are always people who come and write stuff about DVD/CD/tapes being useless... bla bla bla.

      I have 10 years old CD's that are perfect when scanned. I don't trust HD's as much as I've had some go bad just sitting on a shelf. Not that they've gone completely bad but half a dozen corrupted files among a million is just not good en

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )
        Yes, but you copy CDs/DVDs to drives in folder with a number, then right the number on the CD/DVD. You hard drive index file now doubles as a CD/DVD index file. That must be backed up.

        Put in binders, put binders at someone elses house, in fire box, or even a safty deposit box if you care that much.

        Your CDs will last longer not being slid in and out of a binder, or take up less space not being in a jewel case. Your hard drive is now just a very fancy index for your archive (in that it has the full informa
    • While I realise this isn't answering the question based on my experiences with disk catalog software I would say that unless you are very short of money copying the drives to hard disk is the way forward.

      The problems I found were...
      If you have been unorganised when assembling these CDs full of files then a catalog of the contents doesn't help much. If you don't know a filename (and the filename is obfuscated) then you're going to have a hard time finding it.
      If your search brings back several potential resul

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )
      And if you trust mechanical harddrives without a backup, you are foolish.

      Hardware failures, viruses. I would rather not risk it.
      • > And if you trust mechanical harddrives without a backup, you are foolish.

        Who said about not making backups? I did? No.

        > Hardware failures, viruses. I would rather not risk it.

        Yeah because CDs that you throw around are that much safer without backup. :)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nurb432 ( 527695 )
          Myself, i have 2 copies of important data DVD's/CD's. One offsite, and one that i 'use'.

          If the 'on site' copy acts strange in the least during a restore, then the off site one gets duplicated.

          And while you may not have discounted the use of backups WITH the hardrives, many people really do think they don't have to have backups. " i have raid... "
          • > Myself, i have 2 copies of important data DVD's/CD's. One offsite,
            > and one that i 'use'.

            And you have no clue if the offsite copy still works.

            > If the 'on site' copy acts strange in the least during a restore, then
            > the off site one gets duplicated.

            Yes but the offsite one may not work - do you always check them if they are OK? Filesystem like ZFS has self-healing capabilities so paired with redundant data storage (meaning the data is copied over two discs) it can detect faults "on the fly" and

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by nurb432 ( 527695 )
              1 - i use DVD's for large amounts of data. 2000CDs is silly. Tho, when that was all that was available, 300+ wasnt uncommon. ( as was thousands of tapes long before that. Remember the old IBM style silos the size of buildings? I do. )
              2 - Yes, off-sites are verifed. ( on a regular schedule )
              3 - There is also a tape that goes out to different site once a month. But its never been used, thats the last case emergency.
              4 - Yup properly labeled and cataloged. ( in house softare, so it wouldn't have helped the or
  • You need to try wine. There are three alternatives; red, white and RPM. Depending on the time of year either is acceptable. After several Wines you'll not care about your growing pile of DVDs and be much less stressed. If all that fails Wine will also allow EvilOS software to run on your X86 Linux machine. If you combine Wine in red or white with wine in RPM then you'll not be aware of the shortcomings.

    Also, seconded for copying everything to a huge disk and being done with it. If it's that important

  • Don't help the pack rat (Score:3, Funny)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Thursday June 21, 2007 @07:21PM (#19602007) Homepage Journal
    He needs to learn to throw things away.

    • Right. Because nobody ever has a legitimate reason for having a few hundred GB worth of data and files.

      Keep telling yourself that.
  • find /mount/cdrom > cd_name.txt

    wrap it in a shell script if you want to be prompted.

    or under windows: dir /s /b e:\ > cd_name.txt

    It's not that hard, you don't really need any special software.

    • You forgot the sensible default! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      #!/bin/sh
      while
      do
      # software prompts for a name
      echo "insert next disk and type in a name"
      read x
      if [[ $x == "" ]]
      then
      x=midget # sensible default
      fi
      # software reads disc
      ls /dev/cd > pr0n.$x
      # software ejects disc eject
      # software tells you what if any label to write/apply to the disc
      echo "Write '$x pr0n' on the ejected disk."
      # software is ready for the next disc
      done

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Simon80 ( 874052 )
      Hmm, but imagine if someone automated this, and also stored some metadata, like mimetype and last modified date, etc, so you only have to swap disks when it tells you to? That would be pretty convenient.

  • Translation (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Rich0 asks: "I have a growing pile of CDs/DVDs holding hundreds of GB of porn. I would like a linux-compatible software solution to cataloging and searching this porn. Lots of solutions exist for music/video, but not so many for porn. The software should have the ability to easily scan disks: pop in disc; software reads disc; software prompts for a name (with something sensible defaulted [porn]); software ejects disc; software tells me what if any label to write/apply to the disc ("Now That's What I Call Po
  • It ain't Linux, but it's a very good piece of software that will do everything you want, and more.

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/mediaportal/ [sourceforge.net]

    If you are really set on Linux, XBMC is being ported to Linux but you will have to wait a while.

    http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/?title=Linux_p ort_project [xboxmediacenter.com]

    I run an old Gen 1 XBOX modded with XBMC and it does everying I need for CD, DVD, media management. The only draw back is the low end hardware of the XBOX. There are limitations with running HD video etc... It ma

  • gtktalog (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fwarren ( 579763 ) on Friday June 22, 2007 @12:39AM (#19604565) Homepage
    It works for me, I have been using it for at least 4 or 5 years.

    The nice thing about it, is on debian based distros it is never any farther away than apt-get install gtktalog

  • Ever hear of WINE?
  • what i started doing was I got this little utility that generated a text file of all filenames/paths on a dvd.

    I've got apache, mysql and php running

    The utility saves the text files to a folder under the web servers documents and i run a php script that renames the text files with a random number/letter combo, enters every line of text as a unique record in the database parented to the unique name of the dvd itself and I write that unique string on the dvd label.

    Its pretty straight forward and only took 2 we
  • My system isn't a system at all. Because of the LARGE amount of legal optical media I own and my "custom" discs, i've run into this problem lot's of times!

    Usually, i start sorting things out on my HDD. Once that is at capacity, i've moved them on to CD's. Now with DVDs cheap as dirt, i've been using those for a while. My problem has always been the different DVDs.

    So what I do now, is have about 5 logictech cases of 320/420 disc capacity. Each one is broken down into a "theme." I have 3 other smaller c

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