software to emulate disks

[colore]

hello

I have several external hard disks with files

I need a program that will gather the names and size of all the files and folders in them and it will create a database of all the files and folders

then, when I paste a file in a specific folder, it will check if the files is duplicated and it will popup a warning of 'file already exist' as if the file existed

this will save me from having duplicate files on each of the drives

is there a program that can do this?

I know that it can be done with specific RAID hardware, but I want a software solution

thanks

Edited March 23, 2008 by colore

[jaclaz]

Can you tell us more on what you want to achieve?

The common way to do that is to use a duplicate finder to "clean" the base:

http://www.filetransit.com/freeware.php?name=Duplicate_File

and then use a backup or a "sync" program.

Maybe something like this:

http://www.flexense.com/flextk/

will do.

jaclaz

Edited March 24, 2008 by jaclaz

[colore]

Can you tell us more on what you want to achieve?

thanks

I would like to make all the files and folders to all my hard disks (that are external) to appear as if they were all in one disk

and I then to use this hypothetical disk as a database of all my files and folders so that I can check if a file is already there or not

[jaclaz]

Yes, the point is that you will need to use only the "root" directory.

I mean, say that there is a way to "join" virtually these several harddisks, if you have a file "test.txt" on hard disk #1 in folder "\mytest" harddisk, you can have as well the same file "test.txt" on hard disk #1 or on hard disk #2 in folder "\my_test".

Now, if you use 2K/XP there is also software RAID:

http://www.msfn.org/board/before-t52012.html

http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=149

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;308424

http://www.articles-database.com/viewartic...?articleid=4060

What you are trying to achieve can be done setting up Dynamic disks as spanned volumes, but that won't help about duplicate files in different folders.

jaclaz

[colore]

this is what I need: JBOD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBOD#Concaten...JBOD_or_SPAN.29

why this wont help preventing duplicates?

[jaclaz]

why this wont help preventing duplicates?

I said:

What you are trying to achieve can be done setting up Dynamic disks as spanned volumes, but that won't help about duplicate files in different folders.

What I meant was that if you have a file:

D:\somedocs\somedir\foo.txt

and the same file in:

E:\somedocs\somedir\foo.txt

once you have "unified" the drives, to, say, D:\ and you always save that file as "D:\somedocs\somedir\foo.txt", you will have your problems solved, but if you have the same file in

D:\somedocs\somedir\foo.txt

and in

E:\somedocs\somedir2\foo.txt

once you have "unified" the drives you will have anyway TWO files:

D:\somedocs\somedir\foo.txt

and

D:\somedocs\somedir2\foo.txt

jaclaz

[mark]

I think this fits most of your criteria colore and it is free ( donationware )( and you are on your own, I've never used it):

CloneSpy can help you free up hard drive space by detecting and removing duplicate files. Duplicate files have exactly the same contents regardless of their name, date, time and location. Also, CloneSpy is able to find files that are not exactly identical, but have the same file name. Perhaps you have different versions of a file and you want to find all of them and remove the older versions. CloneSpy can also find zero length files. These are files that have no content.

With CloneSpy you can process files which

*

are duplicates

*

are duplicates and have the same file name

*

have the same file name

*

have the same file name and (approximately) the same size

*

are zero bytes long

CloneSpy offers you a complete mechanism for determining which duplicate or same-name files should be removed. It is also possible to leave this decision up to the individual user.

CloneSpy can handle equal files by

*

deleting redundant files

*

moving redundant files to a specific folder

*

exporting a list of all equal files without removing any files

*

deferring file operations on redundant files to a batch file where you can apply arbitrary file operations

With CloneSpy you can build checksum files from files on CDs (or even on hard drives, etc.) and use them to check whether these files already exist on your system. The checksum files will prevent you from having to play DJ every time you search for duplicates!

Clonespy

DL