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27 May 2011
There is no denying that your computer’s performance can be affected by the number and size of files or, inversely, free space on your hard drive. Surprisingly, though the size of files does factor into the equation, the number of files, no matter how small, has a significant impact on your system’s performance. Why?
To use a silly analogy, imagine a garage or warehouse with empty shelves and a clear floor. If I place a single item anywhere in that building and ask you to find it, it shouldn’t take you too long. Taking the analogy a bit further, if I fill the shelves with items but carefully organize them, though your search may take a bit longer, it should still be fairly expedient. Finally, if I were to haphazardly fill the shelves AND heap things all over the floor, there is a chance you may never find a particular item.
Luckily for us, our Operating System (Windows, MAC OS or Linux) does a fairly good job of maintaining an index of files but, as you can imagine, searching through an index of 700000 items versus 7000 just plain takes more time. Although disk space, or lack of, isn’t the only factor that contributes to a slower computer, it is a considerable one. Regular disk management can help a lot. Perform frequent Disk Cleaning (I use CCleaner) to remove temporary and deleted files. Also, disk defragmentation helps speed things up by improving where your files are stored physically on your hard drive.
One thing many of you might not be aware of, however, is how many duplicate files may be hiding on your hard drive – taking up space and contributing to the overall number of files slowing down your computer. So if your computer was once blazingly fast but is now slower than molasses, in addition to performing regular disk cleaning and defragmentation, maybe you need a duplicate files finder!
What is a Duplicate Files Finder and why do you need it?
There may be thousands of duplicate files currently residing on your hard drive. The problem, as I see it, is…how do you find them and how do you sort it all out? Of course, you could always go about it manually performing individual name searches and deleting duplicate files as they pop up but I doubt any of you would have the time nor the inclination. And I should mention that not all duplicate files have the same name. It’s not inconceivable that you could have two or three copies of the same file (image, music, video or document) scattered on your computer, saved under different file names. How do you go about finding those?
Well, the answer, quite simply, is to use a duplicate files finder. There are dozens of decent software for the job though my personal favorite is Doublekiller by BigBang Enterprises. DoubleKiller is a fast and easy to use freeware application for finding and removing duplicate files on your personal computer.
DoubleKiller Duplicate Files Finder
DoubleKiller searches single or multiple directories for duplicate files by comparing any combination of file name, size, modification date and content. Using user-defined masks like *.mp3 or *.dll you can limit the scan to files that interest you or protect important files from being scanned. Furthermore you can exclude files in a particular file size range or files with certain attributes, like hidden or system files.
When the scan is finished a list containing all duplicate files found are displayed and you can manually or automatically select the files to be removed. The duplicate files results list can be sorted and exported to a textfile readable by both humans and spreadsheet applications.
-from http://www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekiller/
To find out more or to download DoubleKiller Duplicate Files Finder, click here.
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