IMatch has unmatched support for removable media on internal or external drives. Effective and intelligent handling of removable media is one of the key concepts in an IMatch database.
All removable media supported by Windows are also supported by IMatch: CD-ROM, DVD, JAZ™ and ZIP™ drives or external hard disks.
The Off-line File Handler
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Your IMatch database contains references to all your images, no matter where these images are stored.
You are able to see your images as thumbnails at any time.
Many commands in IMatch (like searching, sorting, viewing, etc.) work even with off-line images. This effectively allows you to manage your images collection even if it is distributed among dozens or even hundreds of CD-ROM's or DVD's.
Whenever IMatch needs access to the original image, it will prompt you to insert the correct media, using the dialog shown on the right.
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This dialog box contains all the information you need to identify and lookup the media. After you have inserted the correct media, IMatch will automatically continue with the current operation or command. The dialog automatically monitors the drive, and recognizes when the correct media has been inserted.
IMatch manages off-line media in an intelligent way. When you for example want to create contact sheets from images stored on several media, you need to insert each media only once. IMatch creates temporary copies of the files on the media, and then creates your contact sheets without requesting the media again. These temporary copies are automatically deleted when they are no longer needed.
 Automatic Media Transfer
IMatch automatically detects when you insert a media into a different drive. For example, consider that you have two CD-ROM drives:
You have added your images from CD-ROM 1, but later insert the CD into CD-ROM 2. IMatch will recognize this automatically, and relocate all references in the database from CD-ROM 1 to CD-ROM 2 automatically.
File and Folder Relocation
In many cases, images are added to an IMatch database when they are stored on one of your hard disks. IMatch keeps an index of all these images, and hence "knows" that these images are on your hard disk C:.
 When you later move these images to a CD-ROM or DVD to free disk space, or you move these images to another hard disk or a server on your network, IMatch will temporarily loose track of these images. Since the images are now on a different medium, IMatch will mark all images (and the corresponding folders) as "off-line".
All you need to do to solve this situation is to tell IMatch where these images are now stored. This operation is called Relocation. It allows you to tell IMatch that one or more folders (and the images in these folders) are now located on a different medium.
The Off-line Cache
Another intelligent feature in IMatch is the off-line cache. This cache allows you to create "screen-size" (configurable) preview images from images on your removable media. IMatch can use the cache images whenever it needs to show you an image, but the corresponding media is currently not in the drive. This allows you to view your images at a decent resolution, without inserting the media.
These preview images are stored and maintained by IMatch in a special folder on your hard disk. Each cache images takes between 30 and 60 KB, much less than the original image on your CD-ROM or DVD.
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