Archive Entire Pelco System?

Anyone have any experience trying to transfer the entire contents of a Pelco Endura or VideoXpert system to tape for archiving?  I need to take out a hybrid Endura/VideoXpert system in a facility with a long term storage requirement.  Since the VMS storage usually provides the required storage, I dont know that it is set up for transferring data in bulk in a format that can be accessed from a standard avi video player.  I am not opposed to ending up with a bunch of individual files in 2GB chunks that I can sort into folders for each day, but I would rather not have to manually go through and create these files.  I am not onsite right now, or I would just play around with it.  I am hoping someone here has had to do something similar and can point me in the right direction to develop a game plan.  I have searched Pelco's knowledge base but havent found anything about trying to export everything from a system.