Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book General > General Discussions

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 07-27-2014, 12:21 PM   #31
Katsunami
Grand Sorcerer
Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Katsunami's Avatar
 
Posts: 6,111
Karma: 34000001
Join Date: Mar 2008
Device: KPW1, KA1
Quote:
Originally Posted by klmmc13 View Post
While I'd LOVE to have Triple-redundant storage, right now, other than dvd copies, that is a bit beyond my pocket money limits.
Of course I don't know where you are, and how much you have to spend, but here's an option.

If your collection is nog gargantuan, three 32GB USB3 Sticks will do to get triple redundancy. Over here, they cost around €12 a piece. To give you an idea, my Calibre library is 4.6GB, containing 739 books, in both EPUB and AZW3 format.

So, that is +/- 2.3GB for the EPUB's only, or roughly, 3.2 MB per book.

I would be able to stash over 10.000 books onto one 32GB USB stick.

Please note that my library contains 56 Delphi Classic Collections, which are omnibuses, sometimes containing 25 or more books, with large illustrations. They can be over 100MB a piece, which greatly increases the average size of my books.

Normally, an EPUB is easily smaller than 1MB (maybe 2MB if it has a large cover and maps, in case of fantasy and sci-fi), so you can count on being able to stash 20-30K books onto one stick.

In short, you'll probably be long dead before you stand a chance of filling up that USB stick as long as you don't put audio books and graphic novels on them. If so, get three 2.5 inch hard drives of 500GB. (Over here, they cost €38 a piece.)

Last edited by Katsunami; 07-27-2014 at 12:27 PM.
Katsunami is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2014, 12:24 PM   #32
HarryT
eBook Enthusiast
HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.HarryT ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
HarryT's Avatar
 
Posts: 85,544
Karma: 93383043
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: UK
Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami View Post
Of course I don't know where you are, and how much you have to spend, but here's an option.

If your collection is nog gargantuan, three 32GB USB3 Sticks will do to get triple redundancy. Over here, they cost around €12 a piece. To give you an idea, my Calibre library is 4.6GB, containing 739 books, in both EPUB and AZW3 format.

So, that is 2.3GB for the EPUB's only, or roughly, 3.2 MB per book.

You will be able to stash over 10.000 books onto one 32GB USB stick.
Agreed. My Calibre library currently contains 5178 books, almost all of which are in both Kindle and ePub formats. It's occupying 9.69GB of storage space. A 32GB USB stick, which now costs well under £10, is a cheap and practical storage solution. I use the excellent (and free) "Microsoft SyncToy" program to do the actual backups.
HarryT is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 01:56 AM   #33
AnemicOak
Bookaholic
AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AnemicOak ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
AnemicOak's Avatar
 
Posts: 14,391
Karma: 54969924
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Minnesota
Device: iPad Mini 4, AuraHD, iPhone XR +
Quote:
Originally Posted by GERGE View Post
I wouldn't trust Dropbox, Box or Copy for reliability. Use one of the big names like Google Drive or OneDrive.
Because Google & MS don't routinely cut stuff at the drop of a hat.
AnemicOak is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 02:01 AM   #34
Sweetpea
Grand Sorcerer
Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Sweetpea's Avatar
 
Posts: 9,707
Karma: 32763414
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Krewerd
Device: Pocketbook Inkpad 4 Color; Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Quote:
Originally Posted by susan_cassidy View Post
So can .mobi.
True, but .mobi files are binaries. Epubs are just zip files with a plain-text format inside (HTML).

I'd go for epub as well. Simply because its base is something you can open with a very simple text editor.

Or, you could be like me, and use the HTML sources itself as backup.
Sweetpea is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 08:00 AM   #35
jbcohen
Wizard
jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jbcohen ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
jbcohen's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,025
Karma: 11196738
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Piper College
Device: Samsung A21
One of the hats I wear in the real workd is a network administrator and I would like to say from purely an IT perspective it makes little difference which format is used to store an ebook in. I recommend that the originator of this thread look at the ebook in .epub format then in .mobi format in Windows Explorer, in the old days this was called the file manager, and turn on the details by right clicking in the windows explorer, click view, then details. Then look at the size of both formats and store which ever is smaller.
jbcohen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 09:25 AM   #36
eschwartz
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
eschwartz's Avatar
 
Posts: 19,422
Karma: 85397180
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity
Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)
There is no best format. If calibre can read it right now, calibre can read it in 150 years from now -- it's open source, so you can always build it yourself even after Kovid dies of old age and Windows/Linux/OSX don't exist anymore . The only long-term storage problems are going to be preserving the actual file (good backups in safe places) and having some program that can read it. DRM is the only cause of digital obsolescence, because any program that can read a file is not going to disappear. (MSWord is an excellent example of a program that is protected by DRM, hence it has obsolescence.)

calibre can easily convert between any format you have right now. There is no need to convert all your .mobis to EPUB just to keep them readable, because you can always convert them later. The fact that it is binary is completely irrelevant -- it doesn't stop the free open source programs from reading (and converting) it.

Keep the original format, since it has all the base information in it, and everything else can be derived from it as needed. Unless you have converted to EPUB for editing, in which case the EPUB obviously has more of what you need in it.

Last edited by eschwartz; 07-28-2014 at 09:27 AM.
eschwartz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 10:38 AM   #37
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 73,660
Karma: 127838196
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
As I said before, if the source is not ePub or PDF, convert to ePub and keep both formats. If the source is ePub, keep that. If the source is PDF, keep that.

Problem solved!
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 11:07 AM   #38
eschwartz
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
eschwartz's Avatar
 
Posts: 19,422
Karma: 85397180
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity
Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
As I said before, if the source is not ePub or PDF, convert to ePub and keep both formats. If the source is ePub, keep that. If the source is PDF, keep that.

Problem solved!
Except that there is no real need to bother with converting to EPUB at that time, or ever -- unless you suddenly need the EPUB in order to read it in an EPUB reader, or you happen to be editing the code now.

Just for storing it, there is no need to convert to EPUB for the sake of the archive.
eschwartz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 11:14 AM   #39
kristalana
Groupie
kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kristalana ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kristalana's Avatar
 
Posts: 152
Karma: 1170000
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: USA
Device: Kindle PW2, Galaxy Tab Pro
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnemicOak View Post
Because Google & MS don't routinely cut stuff at the drop of a hat.
It's been almost a year and I still miss iGoogle.
kristalana is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 11:50 AM   #40
kacir
Wizard
kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kacir ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kacir's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,447
Karma: 10484861
Join Date: May 2006
Device: PocketBook 360, before it was Sony Reader, cassiopeia A-20
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz View Post
If calibre can read it right now, calibre can read it in 150 years from now -- it's open source, so you can always build it yourself even after Kovid dies of old age and Windows/Linux/OSX don't exist anymore .
A few years ago I took my old Sony PRS-500 and connected it to a PC. I wanted to give it away and I needed to connect to it and delete books from memory.
I connected the reader, started Calibre and ... nothing happened.
I found out Kovid dropped support for the old PRS-500 a few years ago. It took me a *long* time to get the old version of Calibre running. And that was not after 150 years, but after two.
Calibre has many, many dependencies. Just have a look at dependencies here: http://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux
kacir is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 12:00 PM   #41
eschwartz
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
eschwartz's Avatar
 
Posts: 19,422
Karma: 85397180
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity
Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)
Quote:
Originally Posted by kacir View Post
A few years ago I took my old Sony PRS-500 and connected it to a PC. I wanted to give it away and I needed to connect to it and delete books from memory.
I connected the reader, started Calibre and ... nothing happened.
I found out Kovid dropped support for the old PRS-500 a few years ago. It took me a *long* time to get the old version of Calibre running. And that was not after 150 years, but after two.
Calibre has many, many dependencies. Just have a look at dependencies here: http://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux
I can hear dropping support for a no-longer-made device a lot more than a format. Devices wear out, files don't.

Any old version should still work out-of-the-box, as it is distributed as a standalone binary with bundled dependencies??? The only outside dependency is glibc >= 2.10

In 150 years, I could hear that no current binaries would run outside emulators -- who knows what the world may look like then . But I see you got it working anyway which goes to prove my point.

Shouldn't you be able to connect to folder anyway, though?
eschwartz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 12:52 PM   #42
Katsunami
Grand Sorcerer
Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Katsunami's Avatar
 
Posts: 6,111
Karma: 34000001
Join Date: Mar 2008
Device: KPW1, KA1
In Linux everything takes a long time or might actually be impossible if you're outside the official repositories.IMHO, that's THE big stickler for many people used to Windows, where you can (often) easily have an OS from 2001, running 2013 software, or a 2013 OS running software from 1995. That's a fair bit more difficult under Linux. That's also another topic, however.
Katsunami is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 01:00 PM   #43
eschwartz
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.eschwartz ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
eschwartz's Avatar
 
Posts: 19,422
Karma: 85397180
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity
Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami View Post
In Linux everything takes a long time or might actually be impossible if you're outside the official repositories.IMHO, that's THE big stickler for many people used to Windows, where you can (often) easily have an OS from 2001, running 2013 software, or a 2013 OS running software from 1995. That's a fair bit more difficult under Linux. That's also another topic, however.
And that is why many programs are distributed as self-contained binaries from the project homepage. It is the equivalent of a Windows program, with all dependencies bundled so that it works everywhere.

Of course, if you can get it from the repo that is better. Because then you can use system dependencies and it all works.
eschwartz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 02:44 PM   #44
Katsunami
Grand Sorcerer
Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Katsunami ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Katsunami's Avatar
 
Posts: 6,111
Karma: 34000001
Join Date: Mar 2008
Device: KPW1, KA1
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz View Post
And that is why many programs are distributed as self-contained binaries from the project homepage. It is the equivalent of a Windows program, with all dependencies bundled so that it works everywhere.

Of course, if you can get it from the repo that is better. Because then you can use system dependencies and it all works.
I can install Debian Stable, update it to its latest point including the latest kernel fairly easily, but then the hoop-jumping begins to get newer versions of the desktop environment, applications, and so on. To be honest, I think it's %^#%^ that the operating system and applications can't be updated separately without going through great trouble. IMHO, it defeats the purpose of modularity.

Ah well... that's another topic. Maybe I should post about it in the rant thread.

Last edited by Katsunami; 07-28-2014 at 03:42 PM.
Katsunami is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2014, 03:18 PM   #45
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 73,660
Karma: 127838196
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz View Post
Except that there is no real need to bother with converting to EPUB at that time, or ever -- unless you suddenly need the EPUB in order to read it in an EPUB reader, or you happen to be editing the code now.

Just for storing it, there is no need to convert to EPUB for the sake of the archive.
Yes there is a need and a very good reason. ePub is based on a ZIP and XML I don't think these two things will go away. So in the future, you will be able to open the ZIP container and extract the files. Thus, you will have access to the eBook. When the day comes that Calibre is no longer supported and Python 2.x no longer runs on your latest computer, then there no longer such access to other formats such as Mobipocket or AZW3. ePub is the only eBook format that has a chance to survive in the future in terms of being able to get at the content held within.

I cannot say what's going to happen in the future, but I do think ePub has the best chance of being able to get the book out of the container it's in.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Lowest long term costs jbcohen Which one should I buy? 5 08-01-2013 10:36 AM
DR1000/DR800 Long term storage and batteries MrWarper iRex 0 09-16-2012 09:22 AM
E-book long term prospects. Format? PaulAuster Which one should I buy? 19 04-20-2012 12:50 PM
ComputerWorld: Android is the choice for the Long Term kennyc Android Devices 1 09-27-2010 10:02 PM
What to do with your old Kindle, long term? carld Amazon Kindle 4 09-05-2010 07:34 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 03:52 AM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.