About blocked and disk spanned pieces


GSplit can create blocked and disk-spanned pieces. You have to choose which type of pieces you want to create when splitting a file. You have just to click on the desired button to switch between these two pieces types.
Generally when you select a destination folder, GSplit tries to find out the best type of piece that should be used. If the destination drive is removable (the destination folder is on a floppy disk for instance), then disk-spanned pieces are appropriate. Otherwise blocked pieces are more suitable in most cases.

00000003.gif Spanned Disk Pieces

Spanned pieces are single files that span across multiple disks. This allows you to backup more files than would otherwise fit onto a single floppy disk (diskette). In other words, GSplit will span your file directly onto multiple disks and automatically determine the size for each piece according to the space available on the inserted disk. You will be asked each time a new disk is necessary until the original file is totally split.

Spanned disk pieces should be used only if the destination disk is removable: this means floppy disks, Zip (TM) disks, USB Flash keys...

The following operations are done: when splitting your file, GSplit asks you to insert the first disk, then the second one... until the final one. For each new disk, it determines the free space available on the latter. According to this parameter, GSplit creates a piece with the same size as the free available space (less the reserved amount space). Your disk is full after the piece has been copied.

There is no possibility to determine the number of needed disks because GSplit calculates the size of piece files according to the space available on each inserted disk. But do not worry: each time a new disk is needed, GSplit will show you how remaining space is needed (so you can find how many disks you will roughly need).

Be sure that your floppy disks are not write-protected.

00000003.gif Blocked Pieces

Blocked pieces are files that are created in specific sized physical blocks. For example this allows you to create spanned pieces files without actually creating them directly to diskettes first.

With GSplit, you can:

  • specify a general size for all of your pieces. GSplit also knows some default values: click on the button named "Predefined" near the size field. You can enter the size and select a unit: Bytes, KB, MB and GB.
     
  • enter the number of pieces you want to create. GSplit then automatically calculates the size of each piece file.
     
  • define the size for each piece file: this option allows you to define the number of pieces and the size for each one. A list is displayed allowing you to add/remove pieces. You should add pieces until the "remaining byte(s)" counter indicates 0.
    • To add a piece, click on Add Piece, and select between "With Specified Size" or "Remaining". Selecting "With Specified Size" will open a dialog box that ask you to enter the size of the piece (in bytes only). Click OK and the piece is added to the list. The "Remaining" option will add a piece whose size is equal to the amount shown by the "remaining bytes" counter.
    • To remove a piece, just select it and click on Delete Piece.
       
  • split after the nth occurrence of a specified pattern: this splits your large text file (or a similar format) into pieces that contain a specified number of lines or occurrences of a given pattern. Please click here for further instructions and samples.

Blocked pieces can be created for all situations, even for removable disks as you can specify the size for each piece files so they will fit on these disks. They can  be used for distribution over the Internet, networks or through e-mail, for backups on CD/DVD and any storage support...
For example, if you want to burn a large file that does not fit on a single CD, you can split it into two blocked pieces and then burn these pieces onto two different CDs.

Notes:

  • Be sure that your disks are empty if you create disk-spanned pieces. In fact, GSplit does not delete any file and the piece sizes are calculated according to the remaining space.

  • If you get troubles with disk-spanned pieces (especially regarding remaining space), then try to leave a small account of free space on your destination disks.