SOLVED: How ot back up data of varying sizes to multipe non-linked DVDs with efficiency

ultred ragnusen wrote:

For the tribal record, here is my personal log file of my one and only test
of Andy Burns' helpful, non-emotional, and on-topic suggested method, which
has a huge advantage in simplicity & speed, at only the cost of
ephemerality.

No need for it to be ephemeral ... as well as using RAM disks (people
are going to run out quickly creating more than 26x DVD sized RAM disks)
it can handle disk based containers, which can be mounted to folders, as
well as drive letters

https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/imdisk-toolkit/screenshots/Capture3.png/1

You might need to use some other tool to create the vhd/iso/vmdk or
whatever file(s).

Andy Burns wrote:

No need for it to be ephemeral ... as well as using RAM disks (people
are going to run out quickly creating more than 26x DVD sized RAM disks)
it can handle disk based containers, which can be mounted to folders, as
well as drive letters

https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/imdisk-toolkit/screenshots/Capture3.png/1

You might need to use some other tool to create the vhd/iso/vmdk or
whatever file(s).

Thanks Andy, as the RAM disk suggestion enabled a fast and easy
size-limited folder, but a RAM disk suffers from all the foibles of RAM
itself.

Your post above actually cleared up a confusion I had in my one and only
test of imdisk, which was when I tried to unmount the ram disk Z:, the GUI
asked me if I wanted to create a more permanent "image disk" prior to
unmounting.

http://i.cubeupload.com/xtMXYh.jpg

Right clicking on the resulting *.img file mounted the image file as a
disk, which, as you noted, means that permanence is assured!

My only exposure to "img" files is Microsoft Office downloads (where they
seem similar, in concept, to ISO files) - so I guess it's good for everyone
to know whatever you can teach us about using the resulting IMG file.

To keep on track, I copied that IMG file to multiple copies, afterward I
simply right clicking on an IMG file copy which enabled me to mount it
(Mount as ImDisk Virtual Disk), so, that establishes the permanence you
speak of!

In summary, your proposed solution is better than mine in /all/ ways I can
think of.
a. It is simple & fast
b. It is permanent (or leaves no footprint, depending on your needs)
c. It doesn't suffer from encryption (which was a flaw of my method)

Thanks for adding value to the overall knowledge level of the group!