dvd backups

[KeesW]

I backup on DVD's. I have a folder called 'Projects" on my C drive for all current projects, and each projects has sub-folders for drawings, graphics, plotmaker files, layouts, etc. Since most of my projects are saved as PLA files I get an additional sub-folder for library objects used.

The easiest way to backup, is to take the C:/projects folder and drag it into my Nero (my DVD software) window, and to run this automatically after-hours.Unfortunately, file and folder names cannot exceed 255 characters in Windows. When that happens, an error message indicates that no back-ups can be made. It might only apply to one file in a thousand, but the only way around it is to select each file to be backed up separately - making sure that its combined folder and file names is not too long - which is very time consuming.

I have accumulated library objects over a number of years from various versions of Archicad and several add-on libraries. The link to these is saved with the library object, creating some folder/file names that are too long.

This is obviously a file management problem. Assuming most users do regular back-ups, how do they get around this issue?Do I need to cusomise library folder names and not use Archicad's defaults? any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

KeesW wrote:
Unfortunately, file and folder names cannot exceed 255 characters in Windows. When that happens, an error message indicates that no back-ups can be made.

This is obviously a file management problem. Assuming most users do regular back-ups, how do they get around this issue?Do I need to cusomise library folder names and not use Archicad's defaults? any suggestions would be appreciated.

We also backup our files on DVD, but don't backup files directly from the original folder : a command line program first compress them in a unique zip file, and we backup only this file on DVD.

The task scheduler is set to do daily archive of the files, and the burning process is quite faster this way : the size of the archive is smaller than the original directories, there is only one file to add to the DVD, and there is no problem with directory structure and file names...