Any programs suitable for making a database over disk-content?

Question

I have quite a lot of external hard-drives, and often have a hard time finding what I'm looking for - not to mention not storing the same file several times on different drives or finding free space when I need. I was therefor wondering if there are any database-programs suitable for storing the content of disks; including filenames, size and modification dates?

Generally, the more automated the program is in searching each disk and parse information about the files, the better. Ideally, it should use a checksum (or something) to identify an identical files. A database that also stores information about each disk - like partitioning, format (filesystems) and free space remaining (on each partition) - would be a plus.

I have MySQL and PostgreSQL, as well as Apache with PHP, running on my computer, so I can use solution based on these. Though I'm really after a more specialized stand-alone program; at least for managing collections, but preferably specialized for keeping track of files on multiple disks.

I'm also open to unconventional approaches (using a program intended for something else). Has anybody had a similar problem and found a good solution?

Answer 1

It sounds like what you want is some sort of media content database. There are multiple such available; a few that you may want to have a look at are:

• Gnome Catalog
• Hyper's CdCatalog
• CDCollect
• Virtual Volumes View

Since these are primarily meant for cataloging CDs and DVDs, they should have no problem even if the different hard disks are mounted at the same location.

Answer 2

After some scouring I found this to list all files in a directory recursively:

ls -R $PATH | awk '
/:$/&&f{s=$0;f=0}
/:$/&&!f{sub(/:$/,"");s=$0;f=1;next}
NF&&f{ print s"/"$0 }'

So then what I would do, would be to save this as a script called listall.sh,

ls -Rlah / | awk '
/:$/&&f{s=$0;f=0}
/:$/&&!f{sub(/:$/,"");s=$0;f=1;next}
NF&&f{ print s"/"$0 }'

have a program run it frequently as:

./listall.sh > ~/filelist

and then whenever you want to find a file, you could run:

cat ~/filelist | grep [whatever filename, date, or size you want]

This is the best way I could come up with. What do you think?

Answer 3

Maybe you can (simply) use a desktop search software, Tracker for instance, which is able to browser, index and give you the possibility to search with an advanced Query Language your database.

It won't work if you mount your different disks on the same mount point.

I guess that you will need to mount them on different mount point: for instance disk "Black" on /mnt/disk/black or /media/black, and so on.

You'll be then be able to triage by yourself with the location path, and if triage by disk if you want by adding a search criteria on the start of location path.