Specific backup question: to spanned DVDs

[Schtibbie]

I know there are as many opinions on how to back up your Mac as there are people, but here's my very specific situation: I have too much stuff in my user (picture of a house on Mac HD) folder to use .Mac, too much for one DVD, and wanna try to back up with NO 3rd party software - however free or cheap.

How about I do this: I make a sparse disk image called "My Backup", encrypted or not, and copy-drag my entire user folder (including Documents, Pictures, Movies, and Music into that image. When and if that EVER finishes, I then use disk utility to burn to DVD.

Would this allow automatic spanning across however many DVDs it would take? I think it will take about 4 DVDs. Is this the part where my perfect plan breaks down? And would this fail in some insidious way to retain important attributes or data *about* my files?

 

[Cromulent]

An easier way would be just to make 4 burn folders on the desktop and just fill them up with 4.3GBs of stuff each. Just remember how to recombine everything when you need to restore it.

Problem solved and probably only about 10 minutes worth of work.

Edit : Would be easier to copy everything to the folders rather than move it, then you can just delete them once you have burnt the DVDs.

 

[Schtibbie]

An easier way would be just to make 4 burn folders on the desktop and just fill them up with 4.3GBs of stuff each. Just remember how to recombine everything when you need to restore it.

I thought of that but I think my iPhoto collection > 4.3 Gb just by itself. Breaking those files apart and hoping later that they will recombine (on a new computer post-disaster or whatever) would require a big act of faith on my part.

Speaking of which, does anyone know if the copy-stuff-to-DVD method works completely when you go to restore? I mean, I know the FILES would be there, but only files I could see when I did the copy, and perhaps not metadata associated with the files, and perhaps not correct permissions, yada yada yada..