OT: Beyond Compare.

farss wrote on 3/2/2013, 6:48 AM
I was recommended this extremely handy utility in another thread of mine by JR,
I've been using the 30 trial for a couple of hours and I am very impressed. One of the simplest to use, well thought out pieces of software I've come upon in a long while. Definately up there with WhereIsIt?

What makes this a winner is its ability to filter files such as thumbs.db and .sfk files from the compare. You get two panes, if you find some file that's missing or corrupt from a R Click menu you can copy from left pane to right pane or the other way around. It is uber fast and I've been using it to compare two NAS boxes with 36,000 files. You don't have to drill down into every folder, any folder that contains a missmatch has a different coloured icon which makes it very easy to drill down and find the issue.
Much to my alarm what should have been identical wasn't. Less than 1% errors but a couple of the missing or damaged files would have created a headache down the track.
There's a 30 day full featured trial available, full license is $30 or $50 for the pro version. Scooter Software have my money. Having another independant way to check backups is giving me peace of mind. I'll be using this software a lot.

Link is here.

Bob.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 3/2/2013, 7:52 AM
Wow! Nice. And to think i was just contemplating writing such a thing myself. I guess i don't have to now.

Thanks Bob!
johnmeyer wrote on 3/2/2013, 8:03 AM
Bob,

That looks really interesting. It should be a useful companion to my three favorite (essential) utilities:

http://www.whereisit-soft.com/WhereIsIt[/link]

You already mentioned this one. For those not familiar, this lets you grab file listings from all your disk drives, or all your DVDs, etc., and then access those listings even when the media is offline. I have several dozen SATA hard drives, hundreds of DVDs, and even old zip drives and floppies that I've captured with this. I can find stuff instantly and mount the media in just seconds.

The guy who wrote it (Robert) is a little prickly to deal with, but it is a very solid piece of work. If you don't enable the viewers (which capture thumbnails) or the CRC capability (which ensures accurate matching, rather than relying only on file names and sizes) it is lightning fast, creating file listings from drives containing hundreds of thousands of files in just a few seconds.


http://www.theutilityfactory.com/Fileboss[/link]

This is a swiss army knife file management utility. For those with gray hair, it is a modern-day descendent of DOS file managers like Xtree or Magellan that you may remember from the 1980s. It actually has a file compare feature embedded in it. I have not used that, so I don't know how it "compares" with the dedicated Beyond Compare utility.

I use FileBoss for many things, but mostly because of its ability to copy only files which are newer than the target. It has dozens of other advanced copy and viewing options that make archiving and file management a lot easier. It is an unbelievably "deep" program, with dozens of features in every menu and dialog. Very well thought out.

The support is great and I've enjoyed dealing with the person (Dexter) who wrote this.


http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.phpBulk Rename Utility[/link]

This is the best file rename utility I have ever used. It can do just about any renaming job you can think of. And, for advanced users, it has an amazing RegEx (Regular Expression) capability built in that, once you master it, lets you perform absolutely magic renaming tricks.

I had several very pleasant exchanges with the author, and found him to be incredibly helpful.


So, what do these utilities all have in common??

I found every one of them by listening to the recommendations in this forum, like Bob's recommendation in this thread.

Thanks, Bob!


kairosmatt wrote on 3/2/2013, 10:08 AM
JR pointed me to Beyond Compare several years ago too and I use it almost every day that I'm on the computer. Its a great program.

John, thanks for those links, I will be checking them out too.

cheers,
kairosmatt
MikeyDH wrote on 3/3/2013, 12:33 AM
johnmeyer, thanks for these useful programs. A question on the Bulk Rename Utility does the directory stays the same? Will Vegas find it after it is renamed? My files can definitely use an overhaul, but I am afraid to make it a more jumbled mess than what it is.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/3/2013, 9:23 AM
Yea, Beyond Compare is just indespensible for comparing and synchronizing drives with large amounts of files. I use it to keep my current project drive and RAID 5 archive drive in sync and then again for my my RAID 5 archive with my backup drives. I also use it to keep development files in sync across my main workstations and multiple virtual machines. It's really an awesome utility for file management. I'm glad you guys found it useful too.

~jr