Transfer and Compare Size from different folders with Powershell

Powershell is a great way to automate your daily tasks.As IT Pro has  a lot of tasks that must complete daily and more tasks to schedule it for next day , next month or repeat a tasks every month.

The necessary of automation it's important for every IT Pro. Sometimes the difficult is to find the time and the concentration that need to create a Powershell Script , do the necessary tests to automate one of your tasks.

After several weeks i would like to publish a new Powershell script that create to automate one of my task.

The reason that create the Powershell script was because every month i must copy-paste files from 3 Servers in one of my NAS , compare it if the source-destination has the same size , delete the files from the source and keep the date which transfer the files.

This tasks there should be done after working hours to avoid performance issues in the specific servers.

So let's start !!

Before start to explain the Powershell script i would like to explain which are the steps that do every month before create the script.

1. Stop the  specific Service.
2. Copy-Paste folders/files from the Server to a NAS which need credentials to login 
3. After finish the transfer compare the source and the destination if has the same size
4. Delete all the files from the Source
5. Start the Service

Base on these tasks i create the following Script.

Stop-Service <servicename>
$password = convertto-securestring -String <password> -AsPlainText -Force
$mycred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential('<username>', $password)
New-PSDrive -Name w -PSProvider FileSystem -Root <Destinatiton Folder> -Credential $mycred
$logProgress = 'c:\copyLogs.txt'
Copy-Item "<Source folder>" -Destination "w:\$((Get-Date).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd'))" -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable copy_log
if($copy_log) {write-output "Copy Failed at " "$([DateTime]::Now)"  | Out-File  -Append $logProgress}
else {write-output "Copy Finish Successfull at" "$([DateTime]::Now)" | Out-File  -Append $logProgress} 
$var1=Get-ChildItem "<Source Folder>" -Recurse | Measure-Object -sum Length 
$var2=Get-ChildItem "w:\$((Get-Date).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd'))" -Recurse | Measure-Object -sum Length 
$var3=$var1.sum
$var4=$var2.sum
Remove-PSDRive -name w

if ($var3 -eq $var4) 

{
 Remove-Item "<Source Folder>" -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable copy_log
 write-output "Delete Succes at" "$([DateTime]::Now)" | Out-File  -Append $logProgress 
 Start-Service <service name>
}

Else

{ write-output "Delete Failed  because Size between source and Destination it's not the same at" "$([DateTime]::Now)" | Out-File  -Append $logProgress } 

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If you want you can download from here

Download Script

So let's start to explain step by step what i have done in the script.

Step 1 : Stop the specific Service

First step is to stop the Service. 

Stop-Service <servicename>

Step 2 : Connect to NAS (Destination Folder)

Because my NAS has username and password must give it in the Script to open the Destination Folder. So in Powershell convert the password to securestring and save it in variable

$password = convertto-securestring -String <password> -AsPlainText -Force

Because we have store the password in securestring use the PSCredential Class to retrieve username and password.

$mycred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential('<username>', $password)

The destination folder is UNC Path. So with PSDrive create a temporary map drive in the destination folder and give the Credentials from $mycred

New-PSDrive -Name w -PSProvider FileSystem -Root <Destinatiton Folder> -Credential $mycred

Very important to create a file which log what happened. So you would know if the transfer complete or not

Step 3: Create Log File

$logProgress = 'c:\copyLogs.txt'

Step 3 :Copy Folder 

With Copy-Item start the Copy from Source Folder to the Destination. As you can see the Destination is w:\$((Get-Date).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd')). The w is the Name of the Map Drive that give in PsDrive when created. The $((Get-Date).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd') will be create a folder with the date of the copy. Also use ErrorAction and ErrorVariable for error handling

Copy-Item "<Source folder>" -Destination "w:\$((Get-Date).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd'))" -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable copy_log

Use if statement to identify what must be write in the log file. You can use whatever you want . In y case i use only Copy Failed or Copy Success

if($copy_log) {write-output "Copy Failed at " "$([DateTime]::Now)"  | Out-File  -Append $logProgress}
else {write-output "Copy Finish Successfull at" "$([DateTime]::Now)" | Out-File  -Append $logProgress} 

Step 4 : Compare Size of Different Folders and act base on Results.

But because after finish the copy i must compare the Folder Sizes between source and destination save the Length of the folders in variable

$var1=Get-ChildItem "<Source Folder>" -Recurse | Measure-Object -sum Length 
$var2=Get-ChildItem "w:\$((Get-Date).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd'))" -Recurse | Measure-Object -sum Length 

To be able to do the comparison i use only the sum which is the number of the size in bytes in another variable

$var3=$var1.sum
$var4=$var2.sum

Remove the temporary mapdrive 

Remove-PSDRive -name w

Do the comparison between the 2 folders and with the if statement decide what must be done. If the folders are equal then will be delete the source folder and Start the Service that must be started. Else just will write in log file file without do anything.

if ($var3 -eq $var4) 

{
 Remove-Item "<Source Folder>" -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable copy_log
 write-output "Delete Succes at" "$([DateTime]::Now)" | Out-File  -Append $logProgress 
 Start-Service <service name>
}

Else

{ write-output "Delete Failed  because Size between source and Destination it's not the same at" "$([DateTime]::Now)" | Out-File  -Append $logProgress }