[Digikam-users] Best method to move the complete photo collection

[Gilles Caulier]

2015-03-24 10:50 GMT+01:00  <cl at isbd.net>:
> Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > All very true but it's very, very risky I think.  You are always at
>> > risk of losing the metadata.
>> >
>> > As far as I understand how things work if your main digikam store
>> > fails in any way you will lose the metadata if it's stored only in the
>> > database.  This is because Digikam will reconstruct the database when
>> > you restore from backup.  Backing up the database file doesn't help
>> > because it won't work on a new disk drive, Digikam rebuilds it. (Well
>> > it might work if you restore to exactly the same place on the same
>> > disk drive but that assumes the disk drive hasn't failed)
>> >
>> > There needs to be a way to copy a collection of Digikam images and its
>> > database in a way that allows copying the metadata from one database
>> > file to another.  At present I think the only way to copy is to write
>> > all the metadata to file, then copy all the image files, then recreate
>> > the database from the metadata in the files.
>> >
>>
>> Not at all..
>>
>> digiKam identify collection from disk using UUID. This ID is stored in DB.
>>
> Which is why, by default, if you move a digikam hierarchy it rebuilds
> the database.

no, not in this case.

Typical use case that i do recently : one SSD 500Go changed as SSD 1To
to store whole collection. Both disks use Ext4.

1/ I copied data from 500Go SSD to 1To SSD
2/ I removed 500Go SSD
3/ Mount point of 1To SSD is the same than 500Go SSD : /mnt/data
4/ I started digiKam
5/ 500Go SSD disapear and digiKam see it (through Solid interface)
6/ 1To SSD appears and digiKam detect it.
7/ quickly at startup a dialog will appear to inform user about change
and ask to relocate DB information about missing disk to new one. A
question is ask for each root collection setup in digiKam. In fact the
new UUID from new disk replace old UUID in DB.
8/ No scan is performed. No DB rebuild. digiKam start quickly.

Operation duration : 10-30 seconds, depending of root collections
configured in old disk.

Gilles