I have massive directories, and I would like to read all the files as fast as I can. I mean, not DirectoryInfo.GetFiles fast, but 'get-clusters-from-disk-low-level' fast.
Of course, .NET 2.0, c#
Similar question was here, but this approach wasn't any good:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1941223/c-directory-listing-massive-directory
Someone suggested pInvoke on FindFirst/FindNext. Anybody tried that and is able to share results?
Try using something like this DirectoryManager and refine it by your needs. Works faster than the .NET Framework GetDirectories() or GetFiles() because we ommitted there cross-platform checkings and adaptations.
For a "normal" approach, basically everything boils down to FindFirstFile/FindNextFile, you don't really get much faster than that... and that isn't super-turbo-fast.
If you really need speed, look into reading the MFT manually - but know that this requires admin privileges, and is prone to break whenever NTFS gets updated (and, oh yeah, won't work for non-NTFS filesystems). You might want to have a look at this code which has USN and MFT stuff.
However, perhaps there's a different solution. If your app is running constantly and needs to pick up changes, you can start off by doing one slow FindFirstFile/FindNextFile pass, and then use directory change notification support to be informed of updates... that works for limited users, and doesn't depend on filesystem structures.