Three Essential Freeware Disk Tools

Managing disks and files is one of the most common everyday tasks that IT professionals deal with. Sometimes it seems that Microsoft falls a little bit short when providing tools for managing these tasks. Fortunately there are a number of 3rd party alternatives that come to the rescue. Here are three freeware utilities that I can't live without.

Do You Need a File Server?

Having a file server has its advantages: your business critical files are stored on something that has more protection because it doesn't have one of your users sitting in front of it all day, surfing the Web and getting infected with e-mails. You can lock it in a closet to prevent theft, too. And lately prices have come down.

Home Server on a budget

There are solid reasons for having your own file server at home or home office and Microsoft has made a pitch for this market with their Home Server. I'm frequently called on to rebuild clients Windows computers that have become ruined by spyware and I don't want to transfer their infected, spyware ridden files on to my own Windows desktop.

Set up a basic workgroup file server

Go shallow on your directory structure for file servers

Don't paint yourself into a corner when designing the directory structure for your file servers!