For a while, I’ve been using CodeSector’s Teracopy to handle day to day file operations in place of Windows. It’s widely acclaimed to speed up file operations by optimizing buffer caches or something like that, but I’m fairly certain that mileage will very from person to person. Nonetheless, I find Teracopy to be very useful and recommend it to power users. It can also be installed for less than computer-inclined users who want something powerful yet easily usable, provided they don’t start messing with some of the deeper functions.

Teracopy can be installed to replace or work on an on-call basis as the file operations handler in Windows. It does everything that Windows Explorer does and more. After a copy operation has completed, Teracopy can perform a CRC or cyclic redundancy check that verifies that the original file and the new file are one and the same. Teracopy also provides the user with the option to delete the original set of files after a copy has finished as well as offering to retry copying files that failed to copy over or failed the check.

Teracopy is available for free of charge at Code Sector’s website, though a PRO version with a few extra features. I would like to note that the free version has no nag screen or anything like that with the small exception of a small text link stating, “Get Pro version” on the file operation dialog window.

EDIT: Haha, I was making copies of some documents I had running when my HDD seized up because my PSU isn’t exactly strong enough to run everything I have plugged into it. Anyway, an incomplete version of the file I was copying was left over, and Teracopy detected this. I was promptly asked if I wanted to delete the incomplete file and only that file, with the remainder of the file operation queue intact and ready to go after this minor inconvenience had been resolved. I told it to get rid of the incomplete file and here I am, continuing rather happily with my backups.