

Version control of really huge files - soundsop
http://alumnit.ca/~apenwarr/log/?m=200910#04

======
dlsspy
Here's how mine works:

[http://www.rockstarprogrammer.org/post/2006/aug/26/space_eff...](http://www.rockstarprogrammer.org/post/2006/aug/26/space_efficient_encrypted_backups/)

------
derefr
How about just storing the file in Venti? A Git API could probably be written
that uses it underneath: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venti>

------
brown9-2
Maybe I'm missing something but is this really a common use case? Wanting to
store 100mb DB dumps in version control? I'm not sure VCS is the best for pure
backup needs.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
Well, the non-common use cases are mostly the ones that are harder to solve.

I don't have to do much with databases, but a lot with multimedia and large
files for which you want some version control are rather common there. And
it's more tricky because it's not text-based but binary and because you
usually don't want every change to be a new version but only save very
specific versions and otherwise changes should just replace the last version.
Actually I haven't found yet a way to do that with mercurial which I use
otherwise. So for now I just mix: Really large files are kept outside hg and
saved and versioned by hand which means I have to distribute them additional
to hg export when copying the project around. And for smaller files I just
create new versions on each change even though I don't like it and would
mostly prefer to just replace old versions. Unfortunately that is not the
problem solved in this article.

What I would need would be a version control system that allows me to tag
files so that those files are just replacing previous revisions on a commit
(maybe still noting all the times they got updated) unless I specifically tag
them as "new version".

~~~
weaksauce
I would really like this type of feature from a git or hg. One of my concerns
about the state of version control is the sub par handling of binary files.
Git works well for the intended use case of the strictly text projects such as
the linux kernel etc. but not as good for complex multimedia applications with
changes to binary files being common. I guess I could do a repack often but it
would be nice for a version control system to handle these files better. I
know it's a pipe dream right now but one can hope.

Edit: I guess I should say I was referring to open source DVCS and not the
commercial stuff like perforce.

------
tdonia
anyone know how this compares to wuala's scheme?

