Is there, on Windows, a reputable backup software out there capable of capturing ONLY a file system's directory and file structure, along with each item's attributes, WITHOUT capturing the actual file content (all files should be zero-length in the backup).
I thoroughly searched the web for a solution and wasn't able to find one.
Scenario when this would be very useful: I have a large drive with a
huge amount of files. If the drive dies, I don't care so much about
the content in these files (I can always download this content again
from the Internet at any time) but I do care HUGELY about the names
of the files that were on it, possibly also about their MD5 hashes
and other classic file attributes (especially created-date / modified-date).
The functionality I need is present to an extent in "media"/file cataloging software (i.e. whereisit) and, to a lesser extent, in a Total Commander set of extensions (DiskDir, DiskDirExtended). The huge drawback with cataloging software is that it's not designed to store previous versions of each item (AFAIK) and, most importantly, it has very weak content backup capabilities.
I managed to think of a hack but I hope there's some backup software out there that already has this capability and I just failed to find it, thus this question.
The hack: RoboCopy could be used with /CREATE (CREATE directory tree and zero-length files only) or /COPY (what to COPY for files) without the D=Data flag, to clone a directory structure into one where all files are zero-length but have the desired attributes. Then I would backup the cloned directory structure with a reputable backup software.
I would really love to avoid a hack like this one, if possible.
Thanks,
Bogdan
