Clean · File storage

Twenty years of folders, and three copies of everything that matters.

Nobody planned a file server. It accumulated, through two office moves and four IT providers.

We profile what is actually there — duplicates, dormant content, path depth, oversized files — and give you a restructure plan before anything moves to SharePoint.

  • Duplicates found by content hash
  • Dormancy measured
  • Nothing deleted by default
  • Reclaimed volume quantified

Price cue, ex GST

From $2,500

Scope a cleanup Or call 1300 652 280
The profile comes first

Before anything changes you get a profile: what is actually wrong, how much of it there is, and which rule found each case. Nothing is altered on the strength of an estimate.

  • Australian managed
  • Delivered remotely
  • Source data never deleted
  • Verification report at sign-off

What the profile finds

Identical files stored in six locations, found by content hash rather than by name

Folder trees duplicated wholesale during a previous server move

Content nobody has opened in five years, sitting in premium storage

Paths too deep for SharePoint, which will skip them silently

Illegal characters in names that cause silent rejection at migration

Application databases and system files sitting among ordinary documents

What a file profile actually produces

Six numbers that change how a migration gets scoped and priced.

The full 17-gate method
  1. 01Total files and folders, by share, with growth over time
  2. 02Duplicate groups by content hash, with the reclaimable volume attached
  3. 03Dormancy distribution — how much of the estate has not been touched in three, five, ten years
  4. 04Path depth and length distribution against the destination limit
  5. 05Illegal character and unsupported type inventory
  6. 06Application data and system files that must not go to SharePoint
  7. 07A proposed structure, sized against what people actually use

The proof you keep

The profile is a number, so the decision can be one too.

Most file server decisions are made on impression. A profile replaces the impression with volumes you can put next to a migration quote. Example format below.

File Profile Report

File server profile · Example format

Verified
Example reconciliation: source totals compared with destination totals
FindingBeforeAfterStatus
Files1,884,2201,204,882Verified
Duplicate groups by content84,2060Verified
Volume reclaimed4.2 TB0Verified
Dormant over five years612,884612,884Archived by agreement
Paths remediated4,8824,882Verified
Application data excluded1,2061,206Excluded by agreement

Dormant content is archived rather than deleted unless you instruct otherwise, and it is archived somewhere retrievable. The reclaimed volume figure is what changes a migration quote.

Free · About three minutes · No sales call required

Tell us about the data. We will tell you the likely range.

Volumes, custom structures and whether history has to survive are what drive the price. Four steps, and an engineer reviews every answer before a proposal is issued.

  1. 1. Route
  2. 2. Volume
  3. 3. Project
  4. 4. Contact

Loading the Fit Check. If nothing appears, JavaScript is disabled — call 1300 652 280 or email info@output.com.au and we will scope it with you directly.

Step 1 of 4

Questions about file cleanup

How do you find duplicates that have different names?

By content, not by name. Files are hashed and identical content is grouped regardless of filename, folder or date. Name-based detection finds a small fraction of real duplicates — the interesting ones are called Final, Final v2 and Final USE THIS, and they are frequently not identical, which is a different and more useful finding.

What counts as dormant?

Last-accessed and last-modified dates over a period you nominate, usually three to five years. Dormant does not mean deletable: the point is to make archival a decision someone takes deliberately, rather than paying to migrate content nobody has opened since the last office move.

Do you delete anything?

Not without explicit instruction, and not as part of a cleanup by default. The deliverable is a profile and a restructure plan. Deletion and archival are decisions you make from that profile, and the ones you make get executed with a pre-change export in hand.

Why does path depth matter?

Because SharePoint enforces a total path length limit that Windows does not, and every file beyond it is silently skipped during migration. Finding and restructuring those paths before a migration is considerably cheaper than reconciling missing files afterwards.

Is it worth doing if we are staying on the file server?

Yes, for a different reason. Sprawl is a findability problem before it is a cost problem, and a restructure plan is worth having whether or not you migrate. Most clients do it as migration preparation, but it stands alone.

Find out what is actually in there.

Profile first, change second.

Scope a cleanup
File server cleanup Free Fit Check · about three minutes