I tried Google's Picasa software which is very good, but it is consuming lot of hard drive space. Is there any similar free photo organizing software, what I mainly need is a software that can scan my disk and combine all the images.
that one is listed here: http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/gmm/fwgcatalog.html looks like a nice run down on severals apps. I'd hope that you could find one good one in the list here!
I use kodak software that came with my camera. It is available for download.. Just google, kodak software....
Irfanview is incredibly popular, and understands just about every file format under the sun. Exifer is another great tool for managing digital photos by the folderful. I'm starting to like Adobe Bridge quite a bit; it's a little slow but understands RAW files from my camera, and integrated really well with Photoshop. If you already have Photoshop 7+ you have Bridge, too, and should check it out. If not, this is an expensive road to go down. Breeze Browser is really good and shareware, so about halfway in between.
I also use ACDSee and love it but did not include it b/c he was looking for a free solution! which version of ACDSee does everyone use currently. I have 8. The only thing that seriously bugs me is that it takes forever to scroll through CR2 (Canon RAW files). 1.62 seconds on avg....
RAW files take a lot of processing. And CR2 implies a fairly high rez body. Do other programs deal with lots of thumbnails / scrolling better when you shoot all RAW? You might get things to run a little faster if you rebalance I/O across your drives? Or you could shoot RAW + Small Jpeg.
Yeah, plus they are 10MP files so I guess I shouldn't expect lightning fast results. BUT, Adobe Lightroom renders them as least twice as fast. Or at least does it in a way that doesn't make you as irritated. I should do like you said with + small jpg or just develop them as such just for quicker viewing purposes!