Testimonial from David Durlach
From: David Durlach <david@technofrolics.com>
To: "AcuteFinder support" <acutefinder@hugmot.is>
Date: 07/02/2004 12:02 AM
Subject: Thanks and Testimonial from TechnoFrolics

Dear Ingolfur and The AcuteFinder Team:

Thank you for creating such a great product, and for adapting and enhancing it, in just days, in response to my particular needs. Rarely, if ever, have I had my feedback and suggestions for improvements in a software product implemented with such amazing speed!

Here at TechnoFrolics we create enormous volumes of still and video image data. Getting rid of unneeded duplicate files, typically created during ongoing backups of content in the middle of project deadlines, is critical. Without such cleanup, it is easy to waste hundreds of Gigabytes of space - not to mention the confusion created by having duplicate source files in multiple locations.

I researched around half a dozen competing file duplicate-finding products, and none appeared anywhere near as effective for my needs as yours. I was able, efficiently and painlessly, to run AcuteFinder on *over a Terabyte of video and image data, spread across eight 200 Gigabyte USB hard drives*.

First, I ran your product with CRC checking disabled (for increased comparison speed), in order to delete files with identical size and date (and usually identical name).

Then, for the few remaining files where I was uncertain as to whether they were identical due to different dates and/or names, I turned on CRC checking. Because our video files are very large - often over 10 Gigs in size - the CRC calculations took several hours. However, this work all happened smoothly in the background without needing any attention from me. And, because ActuteFinder caches the CRCs calculated for each file, this is essentially a one time operation, so restarting the program later to do further cleanup work, even with CRC enabled, was fast and easy.

The features of AcuteFinder that, particularly when taken all together, make it truly shine include:

1) Speed.
  a) One can first search for duplicates at very high speed based just on file size and date/time.
  b) Then, once files have been "pruned" by this method, CRC checking may be enabled for those remaining files that need content comparison checking.
  c) ActuteFinder's ability to cache and store the calculated CRCs, dramatically increases the speed of future CRC-based comparisons.

2) Color coding of file matches. AcuteFinder's color matching of duplicate files makes it easy to skim the page during file purging.

3) Showing all file information on the file review screen, as well as keeping a permanent record of scanned, matched, and deleted files. AcuteFinder's window showing file size, modified time and date, and text log file showing my deletes, were in combination invaluable.

Competing products I evaluated suffered from one or more of the following limitations:

1) Too slow:
  a) To check content, they performed byte-by-byte comparisons. Such a comparison method intrinsically prevents caching, which would have resulted in every fresh run of the program being incredibly slow for large data files.
  b) They did CRC checking on all files in an entire drive, without first eliminating the files that didn't need such checking because they had no corresponding file length matches. One program I tested took almost 8 hours to image just one of my drives, where I would have had to image 7 more to even begin the duplicate file purging process. Clearly, this was a completely impractical route for my situation.

2) Some programs omitted color coding of duplicate file sets. From my perspective, this made the program virtually impossible to use.

3) Some programs did not show enough file information in the comparison window for me to quickly assess whether the files were indeed duplicates, and if they were, which one I wanted to delete (i.e., from which folder).

 
In conclusion, I highly recommend AcuteFinder (and its support team) to anyone trying to organize and clean up media filled with unwanted duplicate files, particularly in situations like mine where terabytes of data in video and image files need to be examined quickly, efficiently, and reliably.

Sincerely,

David Durlach
Director and Founder, www.TechnoFrolics.com


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