>> I have a large number of files that live on offline media (data DVD),
>> and it's getting difficult to keep track of which dvd (out of 100+
>> disks currently) the file I want is on.
>>
>> Does anyone have any suggestions for creating a searchable database
>> where I could enter a substring of a filename and have the database
>> return full filenames and the correct disk.
>>
>> I know this situation has occurred before and been solved by others,
>> but I can't find any descriptions on how such a system would be
>> organized.
>>
>> Anyone have any pointers for me?


>How about grep and a flat text file?
>
>Disk    Filename
>
>You could gzip the text file, and gzcat filename | grep "foo"


How about use (s)locate? You can just use a separate locate DB for each disk
then write a trivial shell script to search all the locate DBs for the
file(s) and optionally stop searching after the DB with the first hit.