Duplicate Files and Organization

About7Narwhal

Hey all,

I have had a personal file server for about a year now and have come to a point where data is unmanageable. I have about 3 TB worth of data and several different sized drives for it to go on. The problem initially started when I had to backup everything via the command line due to OS issues. Because I had a month old backup, I wasn't sure what would be lost, so I manually copied all of the data between two smaller drives.

Now, I sit with 3 copies of some objects and 1 copy of others because I have been too lazy to fix the mess I made. The data is unmanageable as it stands and I have to use search functions to find even the simple things. It is driving me crazy and I am now dying to fix it.

Because of size limitations I am unable to move all of the data together to go through it, nor can I merge the backup with the existing file system (due to the same size issues). Some options that I have considered would be to either create a spanned volume and sort my data then start fresh or to buy a series of drives all the same size and get rid of the mixed size drives I have, then sort my data that way.

A third option would be to use an application to find duplicates and then once they have been removed, organize the data as I would assume to have enough space to fit back on my data drives. Can anyone suggest the best option, in their opinion, to resolve this type of data problem? If a duplicate file finder is the solution, I would need one that can match more than just the name as I have renamed several objects with a naming tool. Thanks for the input!