1. Choice of media
As an initial media for mass storage DVD-R 4X single sided media is recommended
(4.7 GB capacity). Although, the Sony DW-U14A burners on our computers are
capable of reading and writing most popular DVD and CD formats, many other
computers are not equipped with universal read capability. A complete
discussion of the various writable media types available is beyond the scope of
this document, but the choice of DVD-R is not hard to understand. DVD-R is the
most widely supported media and it is economical (approaching $ 1.00 a disk in
bulk quantities). Initially we had considered using double-sided media, but
after some reflection we now think this is not the best approach. The reason
for this is that there is very little room on double-sided media to apply a
label or mark directly on the disk. Furthermore with double-sided media it is
necessary to manually flip the disk on our current burners to write on the
opposite side.
2. DVD Software and Examples
I have implemented two methods to burn DVD's: Command line tools and K3b. The
command line tools, dvd+rw-tools, are the latest
versions from http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/. This rather
technical (but interesting) web site should be consulted for details. K3b is a
KDE GUI that handles the burning of both DVD's and CD's quite intuitively.
K3b is a well-featured backup utility with many
nice features that users should like such as drag and drop file selection,
multivolume DVD backups, backup verification, and DVD/CD copying. Note that k3b
uses the dvd+rw-tool package
as an underlying software layer.
There are several approaches to using command line tools to burn DVD's,
but the simplest method is to insert a blank DVD in the drive and simply
issue the command:
$ growisofs
-Z /dev/cdrom -R -J -apple <directory>
where <directory> is the top of a directory tree. I have tested DVD-R's
burned this way and they are readable on Linux, Windows XP, and Apple OS-X
computers (and probably other OS’s as well).
Note that in using this command line invocation, the user is responsible for
having his files properly organized in the directory as they will all be
streamed out and burned nearly immediately onto the blank DVD media. I estimate
that burning a 4.7 GB DVD will take about 15 minutes depending on the number of
files. The CSP will generate about 1.2 GB of data per night, so burning one
archival DVD and one backup archival DVD each night should be very
straightforward. More elaborate command line approaches are possible by developing
scripts. By typing
$ mkisofs
-help
a full set of switches, all usable by growisofs, is given.
To use the k3b GUI to burn or copy DVD's, open a terminal window and become
superuser. Type
# k3b
and follow the intuitive GUI menus (similar to PC programs such as NERO) to
select directories and files to burn or copy DVD's. Note that k3b also supports
CD burning and copying if one has smaller sized data needs (650 MB per disk).
It will be possible eventually to get k3b to work for non-privileged users.