How to use Diskspan GUI v2+

[Cesar82]

Thank you so much KaktoR for giving this real class.
If you haven't seen it, read the #post

Now let's get to the information I decided to share (again):
I will remind users that although the DiskSpan GUI has a "Masked" mode, I do not recommend using it for compressions that generate a very large Data#.bin file for the following reason.

The "Masked" mode splits the file after creating it, so during compression you will have to have that extra space of the Data#bin file size so you can compress.
So far nothing much, the problem is that a similar process is performed when installing/unpacking the file.

When installing, before extracting the Data#.bin file that was divided, a temporary file will be created on the disk in which all parts of this divided file will be merged and later this temporary file will be extracted.

Example:
Assuming that you compress a 150 GB game and that you use a "Masked" compression (Split Mode), and that after the final compression you get 110 GB (Ratio 73.0%), and choose "BD 50" as media.

When compressing, a single temporary file of 110 GB will be generated, and then this file will be processed, generating 3 new files with sizes of 46.56 GB, 46.56 GB and 16.88 GB respectively.
To compress this game, you will need at least 370 GB of disk space, 150 GB for installing the original game, 110 GB for the temporary file that will be deleted after completion, and 110 GB for the final conversion.

And if you want to test this conversion before uninstalling the original game?
Now the problems begin, as you'll need more space for this as well.

To install using an installer or unpack using the DiskSpan GUI's own features, you will need an additional 260GB.
Of those 260 GB, 150 GB will be occupied by installing/unpacking the game and 110 GB will be occupied by the merged file before the extraction starts.

So in summary:
To create this conversion and test that everything is working before deleting the original game you will need at least: 150 GB (original game size) + 110 GB (Conversion files size) + 110 GB (Temporary merged file size) + 150 GB (Installation test folder size) = 520 GB.

These 520 GB do not necessarily need to be on the same disk or partition. It would take 150GB to install the game on a partition, 220GB on the DiskSpan GUI destination partition to create the conversion, and 260GB (110GB + 150GB) on the chosen partition for the test unpack/installation.

If using DiskSpan mode (Not "Masked/SPLIT" mode), the temporary 110 GB for compression and also the 110 GB for installation/unpacking would not be needed because CLS-DiskSpan.dll (by Razor12911) helps unpack without being necessary merging the Data#.bin file again, and these additional tasks are not time consuming.

Complement:
One way to reduce this inconvenience would be to configure it to create multiple Data#.bin files and use the extension-based or directory-based include/exclude list to specify which files will be in each Data#.bin.

That way it would create smaller Data#.bin files, requiring less space to merge them, or even not being necessary to merge depending on the chosen media.

In the same example above, if you use 3 Data#.bin files, you can configure the first one to occupy a little less than the chosen media size (something like 45 GB) and the second one a little bigger than the chosen media (something like 49 GB), it would only be necessary to merge the second Data#.bin file because the second file would have parts on Disk1, most of it would be on Disk2, and the rest would be on Disk3, and the other 2 files would be whole one on each disk without need to split or merge them in the installation..

So make your choice wisely!