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

[cl at isbd.net]

Remco Viëtor <remco.vietor at wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> On Tuesday 24 March 2015 11:20:30 Gilles Caulier wrote:
> > >> 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.
> Just to make sure I understand this correctly.
> 
> We have two cases: 
> - if you move your collection to a new disk, and make sure that the 
> absolute path to the collection stays the same, Digikam will ask for 
> confirmation and just update the UUID
> 
> - if you move the collection in such a way that the absolute path to the 
> collection changes, Digikam will rescan all the images.
> 
> So what happens if you move the collection to a new disk, which goes to a 
> different mount point (so the absolute path to the colleciton changes)?
> (Note that the collection no longer exists at the original path)
> 
The mount point doesn't appear in the path necessarily.  Most smallish
Linux systems are likely to have everything on / anyway.  The absolute
path when I did an rsync copy to my laptop was the same on the laptop
as it was on my desktop machine where I had copied it from.

/mnt/data is normally just a temporary mount point for external disks
such as eSata or USB drives, it's not where I would normally ever have
a digikam collection.  As I said my pictures are in ~/pictures which
on all my systems (and there are quite a few around my house and on
laptops) is always /home/chris/pictures.

The absolute path doesn't change and digikam *does* rebuild the
database, I've never seen otherwise.

-- 
Chris Green
·