multi-volume archives

Victor Sudakov vas at mpeks.tomsk.su
Sat Sep 21 18:45:39 UTC 2019


Kurt Hackenberg wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 13:30:03 +0700
> > Victor Sudakov <vas at mpeks.tomsk.su> wrote:
> 
> >> Which is now the most convenient way to create multi-volume archives? To
> >> fit an archive on a FAT32 flash drive, a volume size should not exceed
> >> 4g.
> > 
> > 	Gnu tar (in ports/packages as gtar) has support for multi-volume
> > splitting (-M) which by default prompts for the next volume to be installed
> > (so you could write direct to the flash drive) or can use a script to
> > generate the next volume filename. I vaguely recall using it a long time
> > ago.
> 
> You could also use dump, if you want to archive a whole filesystem. Dump 
> can write to multiple volumes, 

dump's understanding of multiple volumes is the same as that of "gtar -M",
or pax (Hello to Polytropon!), that is "write till eof and then prompt
for a new tape to be inserted." This is not what is needed in my
situation.

> it handles everything in a Unix 
> filesystem, and it's fast. For multiple volumes, it would write directly 
> to the device, without filesystems.

No, I need to keep the flash drive compatible with other OSes. If
FreeBSD supported exFAT in the base system, that could be a solution. 

> 
> If your memory sticks are larger than FAT can handle, 

A FAT32 filesystem can theoretically support volumes up to several TB, I
have yet to see such a memory stick.

> you could put some 
> other filesystem on them, like UFS. I believe FAT32 limits a single file 
> to 2 GB. 

4 Gb AFAIK.

> It's also slow.

Maybe it is, for large filesystems. Maybe that's the reason why Windows
does not create FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB (?), but will use such
volumes if created elsewhere.

-- 
Victor Sudakov,  VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN
2:5005/49 at fidonet http://vas.tomsk.ru/
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