Is there a file system, that spans disks/partitions that keeps all the blocks of a file on the same disk/partition? I want a file system for my movies that, if it has disk problems, I can remove the problem disk, put a new one in, copy all the complete files over, and then regenerate the lost files. I'd rather trade the need for regeneration for the overhead of RAID 5+.

I store my movies by genre, scifi, fantasy, cartoons, comedy, thriller, music, musicals, etc. I'm almost tempted to use a disk per genre (or more) and use a joining filesystem, but, I don't want to limit the size for any genre to any particular disk. Plus I want a single path for the ripper to output to and am unsure where files go when written from that perspective.

Thanks!

Not to my knowledge... however, there might be some options in a software RAID using mdadm that you might be able to use in order to make that happen.

Personally, I wouldn't go this route. I would stick with RAID 5 (or 6) and not deal with the loss of some of your data during a drive loss. Yes, it costs a bit more, but for me that money is well spent compared to the lost time of having to recover files that are lost.

Having just spent the last month or two ripping my DVD collection, the extra drive cost is totally worth it IMHO.

Great, thanks! I had been thinking RAID-5 would be the way to go, but, right now money is a little tight, whereas time is somewhat available When they reverse, I'll probably go with a RAID of some kind.

Thanks!

If you are not going to immediately go the RAID route, then splitting things across multiple disks by genre is probably the way to go. Doing a span or RAID 0 across multiple disks is a great way to lose everything in one go.

How do you plan to backup all those files? It really doesn't matter how your current filesystem is set up unless you have a correcting raid setup. Otherwise in the event of a disk failure you can simply remove the bad disk, put in a replacement, restore your backups.

Standard filesystems like ext4, ntfs, etc., do not cross partition/disk boundaries without something like lvm or raid.

And I do suggest that you use LVM from the very outset.

Also, set up an automatic backup procedure. There are various web articles that show you how to use "good ol' rsync" to largely replicate the behavior of Apple's fabled Time Machine.

Well, as he said it looks like it is a bunch of movies. My guess is that he has them already on DVD, and has ripped them to files so that he can watch them via something like Plex or whatever.

If the drive holding the files dies, he just goes back and re-rips the DVD's. Hence my missive about time lost, etc.

Exactly this, except, don't have a lot of movies ripped, yet, still trying to decide on a ripper. And right now, time is not a premium .

While you are looking, you may consider something like ZFS or BTRFS. They have some advanced features and also use overhead to do it.

What you were asking however didn't fully make a lot of sense to me.