After trying to backup 20gb of files onto 4 or 5 dvd’s recently I thought there must be an easier way to automatically sort the files into 4.7gb groups.  There are some solutions out there luckily and here are the best.

SizeMove

Sizemove is best described by their own literature:

SizeMove.exe is a command line utility,
with a GUI version : SizeMoveGui.exe,
that splits a folder in folders of a DVD size.

Simply enter a folder full of files into the source folder (top) and select a destination for your output and this nifty utility will split them up into dvd sized folders with a click of the proceed button. You can then use a dvd image creation tool such as my favourite imgburn to create an image and burn them to dvd. Easy. Sizemove is freeware and works fine on my copy of vista premium x32.

Size Me

Lars Werner has created a more comprehensive tool for splitting folders or spanning cd’s and dvd’s. Again you scan a folder and it nicely shows you file groups of 4.7gb. This time they can be moved with drag and drop functionality to a folder of your choice ready to be made into iso’s or other dvd image formats.

SizeMe can also create an iso image itself which you can then drag and drop into your image burning tool. Another freeware tool that worked in vista for me.

HardLInks

HardLinks by Sergey Oboguev takes a slightly different approach here. Hard Links are links or references to a file similar to a shortcut that can be created on a disk that allow you to use a file in the same way as the original. This means you can create a directory of hard links that have duplicated all the files in you need. If you delete a hard link the file doesn’t get deleted. You haven’t doubled the space used on the drive however -  which is the clever bit.

The top section of HardLinks does just what I have described – copies a folder to a new destination as hard links. The second bottom section splits them into cd / dvd portions again as hard links. These folders could then be burned to a dvd. Sounds complicated but once you get your head round the idea it is quite easy. The HardLinks download page has a very good description of the program also.

Roundup

• SizeMove is the easiest to use if you are okay with creating an image file yourself.

• SizeMe is the best if your not sure about creating your own image files as it can create them for you.

• HardLinks takes a little thinking about but may be useful for some.

Alternatively If you don’t mind your files being compressed / zipped then I can also suggest you use a compression tool such as 7zip which will split folders its given into different sizes as it compresses.

Alternate for Mac OS -  DVD Spanner looks like a nice little Mac app that achieves the same end but as I have no Mac I can’t give my opinion.

*Update* Mac users check out Makeusof.com’s 3 Free Applications To Analyze & Inspect Your Hard Disk Space Post.

If you know of a better way of achieving the same please let me know in the comments.

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