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I've recently been tasked to consolidate our data footprint across our network. We have several terabytes of data that has existed on multiple servers and I would estimate that about 30-40% of the data is useless. I would classify 'useless' data as data that hasn't been touched in over 7 years because someone moved it to a new location and never cleaned up the old one, or its just irrelevant and old.

My question is...

Is there a tool that would allow me to scan large amounts of data to help me identify possible orphaned directories on our network?

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Orphaned in relation to what? You mean unique? No duplicates? No references? I would not recommend any automated methods that are destructive in any way, and scanning will destroy last access times of the files. Data is sacred. I'm afraid this is a horrible job that necessarily needs meticulous attention to detail. – Andy Lee Robinson Jul 27 '11 at 16:09
Do you just want a tool that will scan for files older than 7 years?? – soandos Jul 27 '11 at 16:11
@soandos: i think that would be a good start. – Michael J. Lee Jul 27 '11 at 17:14
@Andy: I plan on moving the suspect data to a tape or external drive. I don't plan on doing any deletion. – Michael J. Lee Jul 27 '11 at 17:15
are there any other criterion? – soandos Jul 27 '11 at 17:42
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Here's a suggestion, search for DoubleKiller - I found it really useful for identifying duplicate files through terabytes of stuff, it has lots of search options and constraints on which directories to scan. It's a useful tool for the arsenal, but as with anything reading files it'll destroy access times, if they might be needed in the future.

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cool! Running it now :) – Michael J. Lee Jul 27 '11 at 19:30
great, glad to be able to help... – Andy Lee Robinson Jul 27 '11 at 20:57
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