Smart Disk Catalogue - Free Utility, on-line and off-line disk cataloguing

**michaelezra** · 26-Jan-2009, 08:58

I wrote a utility "Smart Disk Catalogue" for creating a comprehensively searchable catalog of on-line and off-line disks (backup DVD-s, etc).

It was written because I needed its functionality in my own workflow of cataloguing backups.

One of the features i found useful for myself is a search of duplicate filenames across all disks.

Utility can be downloaded from my website at http://www.michaelezra.com, "downloads".

The setup program itself a bit old and not too flashy, but this is all I have at my current disposal.

Latest changes:
Version 1.1.0 (2009/01/26)

A new feature is added to Smart Disk Catalogue application – “Batch Compare” which allows comparison of the content of any chosen directory to the records in the Catalogue. This feature is very useful for identifying files which have not yet been backed up on optical disks that have already been scanned into the Smart Disk Catalogue database. File comparison is made based on creation and modification dates as well as the file size. For a given file when all these parameters are matching to a particular entry in the Catalogue, the file is determined to be current (identical) and unchanged since the last backup. A chronologically ordered history of all backups can be easily retrieved simply by clicking on the file name. Color coding is implemented for statuses such as:

New (file is not in catalogue, backup may be necessary)
Modified (file is modified after entry to catalogue, backup may be necessary)

Old (file is older than the entry in the catalogue, restore from backup may be necessary)

Identical (current with catalogue entry)

Batch compare allows execution of a recursive search, drilling into the sub-directory structure of the chosen directory. Search results can be copied.

**michaelezra** · 1-Feb-2009, 08:03

If there are any users, I would love to hear your feedback!

**Lenny Eiger** · 1-Feb-2009, 18:19

I can appreciate a good software package as well as the next. However, I think using any removable drive these days as a backup is nothing short of insane....

Lenny

**Jim Michael** · 1-Feb-2009, 19:37

Should be usable with external drives though, no?

**Dave Jeffery** · 1-Feb-2009, 20:59

I'll download it and try it. Thanks!

**michaelezra** · 2-Feb-2009, 08:54

The grids used in this application are not performing too well when >50,000 rows need to be drawn. To overcome this limitation, Smart Disk Catalogue limits display to "only" the top 50,000 results of the search with a notification displayed in the status bar.

I cannot imagine anyone would need to glance through 50,000 rows though. For any practical use, searches should have sufficient criteria to return a comprehansible number of records.

With this in mind, yes, this application can be used with any disks, but be mindfull in trying to list the content of a 1TB harddrive!!!! - instead, apply search criteria which would return only a small subset of data.