using threads to delete files with specific extensions ignoring files over a certain date - multithreading

Question

In my profession I make forensic images from "foreign" PCs which I extract later on my local storage.
To clean up the data I'd hope to delete all files that aren't relevant for me. (not limited to: audio, movies, systemfiles,...)
Since we're speaking of multiple TB of data, I'd have hoped to use threads, especially since my storage is all flash and the limitation on the disk is somewhat less of a problem.
To speed the process up after an initial manual run, I would want the script to exclude files older then 1 day (since I have done that one already with a manual run).
what I have so far:
$IncludeFiles = "*.log", "*.sys", "*.avi", "*.mpg", "*.mkv", ".mp3", "*.mp4",
"*.mpeg", "*.mov", "*.dll", "*.mof", "*.mui", "*.zvv", "*.wma",
"*.wav", "*.MPA", "*.MID", "*.M4A", "*.AIF", "*.IFF", "*.M3U",
"*.3G2", "*.3GP", "*.ASF", "*.FLV", "*.M4V", "*.RM", "*.SWF",
"*.VOB"
$ScriptBlock = {
Param($mypath = "D:\")
Get-ChildItem -Path $mypath -Recurse -File -Include $file | Where-Object {
$_.CreationTime -gt (Get-Date).AddDays(-1)
}
foreach ($file in $IncludeFiles) {
Start-Job -ScriptBlock $ScriptBlock -ArgumentList $file
}
Get-Job | Wait-Job
$out = Get-Job | Receive-Job
Write-Host $out
the only thing that doesn't work is the limitation that it only looks at files "younger" than 1 day. If I run the script without it, it seems to work perfectly. (as it gives me a list of files with the extensions I want to remove)

Answer 1

Parameter passing doesn't work the way you seem to expect. Param($mypath = "D:\") defines a parameter mypath with a default value of D:\. That default value is superseded by the value you pass into the scriptblock via -ArgumentList. Also the variable $file inside the scriptblock and the variable $file outside the scriptblock are not the same. Because of that an invocation
Start-Job -ScriptBlock $ScriptBlock -ArgumentList '*.log'
will run the command
Get-ChildItem -Path '*.log' -Recurse -File -Include $null | ...
Change your code to something like this to make it work:
$ScriptBlock = {
Param($extension)
$mypath = "D:\"
Get-ChildItem -Path $mypath -Recurse -File -Filter $extension | Where-Object {
$_.CreationTime -gt (Get-Date).AddDays(-1)
}
}
foreach ($file in $IncludeFiles) {
Start-Job -ScriptBlock $ScriptBlock -ArgumentList $file
}
Get-Job | Wait-Job | Receive-Job
Using -Filter should provide better performance than -Include, but accepts only a single string (not a list of strings like -Include), so you can only filter one extension at a time.