There are times when we need perform a comprehensive backup of the information that we have lodged from a hard disk to another completely different one. If this is so How can you assess the information contained in these hard drives? A good alternative to be able to know this information is using the tool called Checksum Compare.
Of course, we have specifically mentioned 2 hard drives, this is not the only activity that Checksum Compare can offer us; as well two different directories can be compared, which may well be located on the same hard drive or on different partitions. The important thing is in trying to find out if these 2 locations have the same number of files, and the similarity that each of them have to each other. Next we will mention the way in which Checksum Compare works and from which we could benefit if we have dedicated ourselves to this type of task.
Acknowledging the Checksum Compare nomenclature
It's been a long time since we used the word 'Nomenclature«, An essential element that offers a better understanding for everyone who relies on it. Speaking specifically about this Checksum Compare application, it adopts a fairly simple to understand nomenclature, which is presented by means of a few colors that we can easily identify once they are presented. First of all, we must mention that this application can be downloaded in a portable version for both 32-bit or 64-bit; In addition, the tool is completely free and free thanks to the fact that it is open source. Taking these situations into consideration, at Checksum Compare we can download from the official website link.
There you will find both in its version to install in Windows (and in different versions) although, it is recommended to use the portable version to avoid this type of paperwork. If you have chosen this last option, the file will have a 7z format, so you must use a specialized application to unzip its content.
Once this is done, you should look for the executable belonging to Checksum Compare in created directory, at which point the interface will first show the root directory of the hard disk where the operating system is installed. In this regard, this tool works from Windows XP onwards.
The interface is made up of 2 columns with the same type of functions and elements; A little trick that we can recommend at this time is to open a file explorer window and go to the place where the directory to be analyzed is located. There you would simply have to click on the upper part where the location of the folder is defined. You would have to copy this data and then paste it into the space of the first column in Checksum Compare.
The same you would have to do for the other column, that is, look for the directory of the other folder with which you want to compare the one you selected previously; at this very moment you will not admire any kind of difference because the process has not started the analysis yet.
You just have to click on the button at the top (toolbar) of Checksum Compare that says Compare, with which you will begin to see the progress of the analysis in each of these directories.
The most interesting of all is in the nomenclature used by the developer for this application, which is supported by the following colors:
- Verde. The files with this color are identical and there is no variation between them.
- Yellow. Files with this color are absent in the other folder.
- RED. This means that the files exist in each of the folders that we have selected, although they have characteristics that make them different.
Analyzing a little what we have mentioned in the previous point, this could happen if two Word files are theoretically the same, but one of them has more pages than the other.
As you can admire, this tool may be the ideal one to try to know what we have in two different directories, something that may be in our interest if we are about to make a backup from one hard drive to another with a large amount of data.