Re: SSD TBW

On Sun, 23 Aug 2026 21:58:32 -0700, Don Y wrote:

> On 8/23/2026 8:47 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 23 Aug 2026 08:47:27 -0700, Don Y wrote:
>>
>>> And, its going to magically be able to compare JPGs, executables,
>>> .so's, etc?
>>>
>>> Play with something like Beyond Compare (Windows) and see how
>>> helpful file comparison can be.
>>
>> Does Beyond Compare do comparisons on arbitrary binary files?
>>
>> On Linux, for example, we can do something like
>>
>>     diff -u <(xxd file1) <(xxd file2) | less -iX
>>
>> to compare hex dumps.
>>
> Yes. If, for example, you have inserted a byte in one, it will
> display a "hole" in that location in the other to show the balance
> in agreement, though offset, in much the same way you would compare
> text that had an inserted line.
>
> It tries to understand the forms of various file types and tailor
> its comparison to that type. It's aware of many different formats
> (excel, word, pdf, etc.) and tries to add value to each presentation
> -- instead of just saying "they are different" (or "binary same")
>
> Additionally, the sources and destinations can be on remote
> machines, accessed via SMB shares, FTP, etc. So, I can compare the
> contents of one FTP server to another on a different host and note
> the differences as well as synchronize them.
>
> And, it isn't plagued with the path length problem that Explorer
> has, so you can use *it* to drill down deeper than Explorer would
> otherwise allow. This is handy when one of the targets is a UNIX
> machine and the other windows.

So really, what you’ve got there is one giant bloated executable that
has to subsume the functions of what, in the Linux/*nix world, would
be a dozen separate tools -- including the format-guessing functions
of libmagic plus its own custom file explorer, it would seem. Only in
a less flexible, more monolithic form.