Best format for split archive?

[Kayot]

I've been storing my data on DVD's... well everyone does that. Anyway, I've been using a program called WinArchiver because it stores the Archives contents on every disc and it lets me use every last byte on the DVD's (4,699,815,936 for DVD+R) when I store a ton of data. Say I store 50GB of data, I'll turn it into a Split WinArchive format. I can load any DVD in the set and know the full contents of the entire archive without needing all the other parts in the same location. If I extract a file and it isn't in the currently opened part, it'll tell me what part it's on and prompt for me to load it.

Now for my question. Is there a container format that I can use that will do what I can do with WinArchiver but let me specify the archive size per split. 7z can specify the archive parts individually, but it can only load an Archive if all the pieces are available. WinRar will only list what is in current piece if the other parts aren't available. I think Zip can do it, but I haven't looked into it yet.

So any thoughts? Has anyone tried doing this before and what conclusions did you arrive at?

 

[Luigi2012SM64DS]

why would you need only 1 archive?

 

[Kayot]

If I have a few anime's, a couple of games I turned into NSIS's and want to keep the master copies, PS3 games, and/or other data that dosen't need to be on the live archive I'll put it onto DVD. If I just put the files onto the DVD I'll waist a little bit of space on each disc. Sometime's up to 200mb. If I turn it into a split archive, I can save a few discs by using every last byte of space on the discs. This is VERY noticeable if say, I decided to burn the whole GC NTSC library to discs since there isn't really a reason to keep it live.

Also, you have to think about cluster waist. 4,699,815,936 is evenly divisible by 512, 1024, 2048, up to 32768. That means that it will fill every last cluster evenly. Most files don't fall into the category and the space is lost. Granted, it isn't a lot but why loose any if it isn't necessarily. It does become noticeable in the case of lots of small files. Things like pictures etc.

I don't have one offline archive. I just hold back burning data to DVD's until it will take 30ish DVDs. So far I have 22 sets. In the case of the GC NTSC it's 84.5 DVDs so I put DML banners and some other stuff on there to fluff it to 84.99 DVD's. If I would have put just the image files with no single large archive (Even compressed as they are) it would have taken at least a 100 DVDs due to wasted space. Plus I don't have to look through the discs to find a game I want. I can put in any DVD, read the mzp file, tell it to extract the game I want and It'll prompt me for the right file which is also the right disc since the DVD's are numbered by what number is in their archive name.

It's a good system, but I wanted to make the first file really small so I could keep it on the live archive and skip needing to load the first DVD. The solution I've come up with is to make the files 1/100th their size and label the discs by shifting the decimal two places. But I'd much rather keep all the files after the first one the full DVD size rather than having a hundred files on each disc for the sake of "ease of use".

The way to do this with 7z is (right from the help file);

7z a a.7z *.txt -v10k -v15k -v2m

The first file will be 10k, the second is 15k, and every file after that is 2 MB. The problem with 7z is that every file must be present otherwise it won't open. Not very good for my purposes since I don't want to copy 85 discs to my archive every time I want a game. So that nixes 7z. I want that -v function.

Hence, I was wondering if anyone knew of such a thing. It would be very nich, but since most roms and games are huge I figure I'd try here. I've also asked on some movie forums, and they keep pushing me to make them into playable DVDs... They're completely missing the point.