FOLDER SIZE REPORTING

FolderSizes provides a tremendously useful new feature called calculated date/time fields. In this article, I’ll show you how they work and why they’re so beneficial.

Like every other feature in FolderSizes, calculated date/time fields solve a very real problem. In this case, the issue is that Windows maintains last modified, created, and last accessed date/time stamps for folders using a set of rules that ultimately reflect the operating system’s lack of inherent knowledge of what folders contain.

As an example, let’s look at the modified date/time of a specific folder and compare it against what’s presented in the FolderSizes calculated modified date. To do this, start FolderSizes and configure the main window report view so that the Modified (calculated) column is shown. As seen in the screen shot below (click image for a closer look), you can right-click the detail view column header to configure which columns are shown:

Now for our example we’ll analyze the C:\Windows folder with FolderSizes. Below, you’ll see a snippet of the report created by FolderSizes, with the Logs sub-folder highlighted (click the image for a closer look):

Here you can see that FolderSizes presents two modified date/time stamps for each folder – the original modified date/time (as reported by the Windows operating system) and the calculated modified date/time. For this example, I’ve positioned the two columns next to one another (which you can do by dragging and dropping the column headers) so you can easily see that the calculated modified date differs (considerably) from the normal one.

So how are these two values computed and why are they different?

The answer lies in the fact that normal folder date/time stamps must be explicitly maintained by the Windows operating system. If you were to move a file into the Logs folder shown above, for example, then Windows would alter the folder’s modified date/time accordingly. However, if you were to use a text editor to modify a text file within the Logs folder, Windows would know nothing about this operation, and the modified date/time stamp on the Logs folder would remain unchanged.

Contrast this behavior with what is shown in the Modified (calculated) date/time field within FolderSizes. Here, FolderSizes exploits the fact that it knows the contents of every folder and shows a calculated modified date/time representing the most recently modified object in the given file system branch (folder).

This is an extremely powerful capability, allowing you to view and sort folders by deduced (i.e. calculated) date/time stamps that actually reflect their contents.

When Key Metric Software launched its Duplicate File Detective product in May of 2005, we had a simple goal in mind – produce a superior product for IT professionals and experienced computing users. Since then, Duplicate File Detective has experienced strong growth – helping thousands of customers manage and optimize their file systems by providing superior, scalable, and reliable file deduplication.

Our customers have also found that FolderSizes and Duplicate File Detective work very well together. Although FolderSizes does have a duplicate file report that can identify duplicates by a combination of file name, date, and size – Duplicate File Detective goes far beyond this capability with content comparison services, advanced duplicate file selection/marking features, extremely robust duplicate file processing (moving, deleting, and archiving) facilities, and much more.

When we first released Duplicate File Detective, we decided to make it available at a huge discount to anyone purchasing FolderSizes. Simply click any of the FolderSizes license purchase links on the order page, and you’ll be given the opportunity to purchase Duplicate File Detective at half its normal price point. You end up paying $20.00 US dollars for the most powerful duplicate file management software available!

We originally intended to run this promotion for a limited time only, but we’ve since decided to extend it indefinitely. After all, it just makes good sense and our customers love it.

Just another great reason to buy FolderSizes today.

P.S. If you missed the boat and purchased a FolderSizes license without taking advantage of this offer, you’re probably now living a life of profound regret, shame and sadness. Well, don’t worry – just email us, and we’ll make it right!

From a feature perspective, FolderSizes 5 is easily the most compelling version of our flagship disk space analysis and reporting software ever released. New features such as concurrent analysis of multiple file system paths, support for saving and re-loading XML file system analysis data, calculated date/time fields, and rules-based search are garnering rave reviews from our customers.

But the feature of which we’re most proud is perhaps a bit less flashy, and yet still critically important in the age of multi-terabyte storage subsystems. It’s a feature that required changes to every single aspect of FolderSizes – from the disk space visualization and reporting mechanisms down to the proprietary in-memory file system database that drives them.

That feature is native 64-bit support.

Earlier releases of FolderSizes would indeed run on 64-bit systems, and it did so through the magic of WoW64, a compatibility layer that allows 32-bit applications to operate in 64-bit environments. Which sort of begs the question – if FolderSizes has always worked in 64-bit environments, why does the new native 64-bit support matter at all?

There’s a one-word answer for that question: scalability. FolderSizes is designed from the ground up to store file system analysis data directly in system memory. This approach has a number of important benefits, the most important of which is performance – using system memory instead of a back-end database provides FolderSizes with serious performance advantages, allowing our customers to solve real-world storage analysis problems faster and with greater efficiency.

So how does the FolderSizes in-memory database design relate to scalability? The answer lies in a fundamental limit of all 32-bit processes – they can only address (access) around 2-3GB of system memory, regardless of how much memory is actually present in the host computer.

From a software perspective, this addressable memory cap represents an arbitrary limit to scalability. For enterprises with large, multi-terabyte storage systems, our customers need FolderSizes to scale without such limits. If the host computer running FolderSizes has 8 or 16 GB of system memory, then that memory should be usable by running applications (including FolderSizes) to solve real-world business problems. 64-bit systems have experienced massive gains in market share recently, precisely because memory is cheap and scalability is more critical than ever.

The 64-bit edition of FolderSizes 5 blows away the scalability limits of the 32-bit world. Current 64-bit system architectures allows access to 256 TB (yes, that’s terabytes) of memory address space, further positioning FolderSizes as the leader in enterprise-class storage analysis software.

If you’re ready to solve real-world storage analysis problems with amazing performance and without arbitrary limits, then FolderSizes 5 is waiting for you.

The release of FolderSizes 5 represents a major milestone for Key Metric Software and the thousands of customers using it to reclaim disk space, enforce storage governance policies, streamline backups, and much more.

Learn more about what’s new in FolderSizes 5:

https://www.foldersizes.com/v5/

Then download and try it out for yourself:

https://www.foldersizes.com/download

Many thanks to everyone who helped test the beta releases. We received some remarkable feedback during our beta testing process, and it definitely helped us to achieve a very highly quality release. It was also wonderful to hear what our users had to say about FolderSizes 5 – “amazing improvements”, “excellent performance”, and “love the new multiple path support” were just a few quotes from our beta testers.

And please, keep the feedback coming. We have no intention of slowing down.

Today, Key Metric Software released FolderSizes v4.8.3.10. This is a minor update, containing most bug fixes and minor feature / performance enhancements.

Please feel free to download immediately or review the latest product release notes online.