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

[Gilles Caulier]

2015-03-24 17:03 GMT+01:00  <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.

No.

/mnt/data is dedicated to mount something in local or in remote,
registered in static to /etc/fstab. Mine, monted at startup :

/dev/sdd1 on /mnt/data2 type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)  <<= SSD 1Tb
/dev/mapper/vg--data-data on /mnt/data type ext4
(rw,relatime,data=ordered) <<= RAID HDD 16Tb

Removal media are mounted automatically on demand to /run
automatically by a dedicated service. For ex, my external USB3 2Tb
hard drive (NTFS) is mounted here :

/dev/sdm1 on /run/media/gilles/2TO_USB3 type fuseblk
(rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096)

Gilles Caulier