finding duplicate files in backups

[Ioannis Vranos]

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 9:32 PM, Abhishek Dixit <abhidixit87 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I have a 1 TB USB used as backup drive. Due to various reasons same
> file existed in different file systems and has been backed up multiple
> times in this 1 TB hard disk.
> I want to keep only one single copy of those files.The problem is
> these files are spread in different file systems and (multiple
> partitions) and are present here and there at various locations which
> I do not remember.
> I want to achieve following
>
> 1) Reduce n number of occurrence of same file at different location to
> 1 occurrence.
>
> 2) Since I do not know the name of files which have multiple
> occurrences how can I easily find this.


This operation is very time-expensive. In terms of
programming/computer science, the time complexity of this, is O(n^2),

where n, the number of files.


> 3) Is there a way I can create an index of files and directories
> present on my laptop for example when you open a book then each book
> has an index page which tells on which page number what is present.The
> same way.


What you are probably talking about is some desktop indexing software.
Such a software already installed is updatedb/locate. You may check
Synaptic and the web for other desktop indexing programs.



-- 
Ioannis Vranos

http://www.cpp-software.net