Library Management Problem with Calibre

[DibasD]

I have a huge amount of books around 400GB which takes almost all space in my 500GB laptop HDD except the C drive. The thing is I recently aquinted with calibre and I'm impressed with it. Now I want it to manage all my books, and I want my books folder to be the default calibre library folder, but adding books to calibre copies the book, and I dont have extra space. So is it possible so that calibre can modify my existing folder structure with its own without keeping two copies of the same book. Please help me in this matter

[aleyx]

You'll have to use either an external HDD or a network share as a temp device. Then, either you move your current ebooks folder to the temp and import to a local Calibre library; or you create an empty library on the temp device, import your books there at your leisure, and when you're happy with the result you remove your local ebooks folder and move the Calibre library on your local drive.

I'd go with the first solution myself.

(There's also the painful way: import your books by 10GB-sized chunks then deleting them. I'd never have the patience myself.)

N.

[BetterRed]

In a word no, the folder structure and the folder and file names within calibre are determined algorithmically from the metadata.

You could add books to the calibre library in batches and remove from current location as you go, and I mean remove not delete to rubbish/trash/recycle bin.

But IMO it would be better if you got an external drive, I would imagine a 1TB usb drive could be had for less than ₹5,000 where you live. Move your 500 GB of books onto it, and then once you're satisfied they are safely stored in the calibre library you can use it as a place to backup your calibre library.

And even then you should not try to add all the books at once, do it in batches especially if you want to resolve duplicates as you're building the library.

BR

[drjenkins]

I would very highly recommend that you buy two 1 TB external drives if you can possibly manage it. With that large a library you will regret the day that you need a backup of your library and you do not have one.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by drjenkins

I would very highly recommend that you buy two 1 TB external drives if you can possibly manage it. With that large a library you will regret the day that you need a backup of your library and you do not have one.

You might even just put a HUGE size drive into your Laptop.
Clonezilla, even handled my dual boot drive, where WDtools and MAXblast bombed

I don't disagree with the getting 2 external 1T drives (external drives should have a hot spare as they are like Laptops,,,subject to unintended bouncing )

1T of data moving over USB I had an 18G drive I used with Calibre Portable. It took forever to XCOPY the Library over.

Maybe 1 of those should be a 3T of RAID 1 NAS (Do not Use for the Active LIBRARY. Back that up Only) for your Full time backup. NAS because you get LAN type transfer speed, not choked down by DSL, 3G... based clouds

[BetterRed]

@theducks - FWIW - my external USB3.0 drives can move data considerably faster than my creaking internal SATA2 drives. USB 3.1 or USB-C are even faster.

BR