I am trying to deal with my Poser content archive drive since it is filling up to max capasity and I only trust DVD storage to a limited degree so I like to keep things on this extra external drive I have. What is the best freeware app for finding and eliminating redundancy between very disorganized folders on a WinXP system? Thanks.

Attached Link: DeDup duplicate file remover

Only problem you might run into, is if specific content looks for the redundant files in specific locations.

Removing the duplicates might end up breaking a lot of installed content.

Since you can get a 160 gig usb drive for under $50, I'd recommend just buying more storage.. it's very cheap right now.

Heck, you can even get a 500 gig hd under $100 shipped!

Do NOT, I repeat, Do NOT buy any external HD's from Fantom. The one I bought failed before the warrantee period was up and I returned it for replacement. The replacement failed in a week!

Quote - Do NOT, I repeat, Do NOT buy any external HD's from Fantom. The one I bought failed before the warrantee period was up and I returned it for replacement. The replacement failed in a week!

Does Dell own that companyby chance?  LOL

When I was checking prices with pricewatch.com, I was looking only at ultra ata drives, and usb ones. Personally I have enough space in all my machines for a new internal, and prefer them, since they are always the best bargain for the buck.

Something like 500 gig will keep me with everything installed for a LONG time. 

Only issue I have is the LONG defrag times for something that big.. you can partition them, but yer still talking a total of 500 gig, possibly on top of a 360 gig installed base hd.. that's a LOT to defrag on a regular basis.

Defrag?  DEFRAG??  I'm so tight on my HD"s that I can't defrag.  My Seagate 125GB USB drive, which I've had to reformat three times and sounds like a coffee maker when I run it, still has lots of space but I don't dare use it because it fails when I need it.  I contacted Seagate and they offered to work on it for a mere $125+shipping, which is what I paid for it originally.

I'm going to bookmark this thread so I can keep up on the discussion.  I really need a reliable USB drive that I can pack with the laptop to take to work and back.  One that won't fail in the middle of a presentation or a lesson.  OH, and one that won't bankrupt me in the process.

I feel your pain!  There was a time when my old computer's hard drive was so full that I couldn't defrag either. I ended up spending days burning stuff to CD just so I could free up some space.

125 gig?? Ha! I'm curious what other peopel are running. My system came with a 360 gig hd, and then I added an additional 320 as well.

When storage like this is so cheap, it makes sense to upgrade, rather then try to squeeze the last bit of space you can.

Plus, my last system died, but it's hd is still fine, so when/if I need more space, that'll be another 280 gig added as well.

I use dvds for backups now.. they are 15 cents each if you buy them in bulk, and they burn data pretty quickly.

Alas, I am only a lowly teacher, and as such my finances don't allow me to upgrade like I would prefer.  In a world where soccer players get $25 million US to limp off the playing field and refuse to participate I work in a reality where they look at you each year and say "hey, yer working this year, right...so shut up and go teach."

I"ll keep an eye out for folks looking to replace their systems and see about adding HD's to a rack so I have at least onsite storage.

Thanks for the tips and ideas!

"Easy Cleaner" is another freeware app that can find and remove duplicate files.  It can also do a number of other things, including find bogus registry traces. 

Winmerge is a good program to tell you if your duplicate files are the same or are different.