Analysis of the contents of the hard drive. Review of free programs

operating room Windows system features an Explorer tool that allows you to get an idea of ​​what's on your drives. In addition to the list of files, we also see information about their size and the date of creation or modification. This, however, is too little information to find the data that clogs the disk the most.

The applications in this article can be divided into two categories. The first is programs that specialize in disk visualization. This graphical representation of data is perceived better than a list of files. The second group of tools are applications that show statistics on the participation of individual file types among all information stored on selected storage media.

WinDirStat

Represents the sizes and number of files on the computer's hard drive in graphical form, as well as on removable media of our choice.

Advantages of WinDirStat

• An accessible form of graphical visualization
• Also works on older versions of Windows
• You can define how elements are displayed
• Tree cards

Flaws:

• Lack of ability to detect coloring for more file types

Distribution type: freeware
Price: for free

SpaceSniffer Portable

SpaceSniffer scans and shows you the contents of selected drives in an easy-to-read hierarchical color scheme.

Benefits of SpaceSniffer

• No installation required
• Wide possibilities for filtering data that is visualized

Distribution type: freeware
Price: for free

TreeSize Free

TreeSize Free allows you to quickly scan the contents of any media, and the results are displayed in a drop-down tree.

Benefits of TreeSize Free

• Convenient sorting by size, number of files or folders
• Copes with alternative file data streams NTFS systems
• Interface adapted for touch screens

Flaws:

• Only in English version

Distribution type: freeware
Price: for free

JDiskReport

JDiskReport - for lovers of statistics in the form of charts reminiscent of Excel charts. Instead of trees, we have histograms and pie charts.

Benefits of JDiskReport

• Interesting graphic schemes
• Many different statistics, including division by size and creation date
• Available Java version, which runs on any platform with Java

Flaws:

• Windows version requires Java installed

Distribution type: freeware
Price: for free

FolderSize

FolderSize is highlighted by the summary window. It displays charts and a list of files or folders that can be sorted by various criteria.

Benefits of FolderSize

• Displays charts and file list in one window
• Allows you to pause and resume the scanning procedure, quickly takes into account changes in already scanned places

Flaws:

• The free version does not allow scanning of mapped hard drives and network

Distribution type: freeware
Price: for free

Among the innovations of the Windows 10 operating system is a utility for analyzing disk space. It is strange that such a useful tool was not present in the arsenal of the Microsoft operating system earlier, when computer hard drives had much less capacity compared to the volume of modern hard drives.

Thus, the peak of urgency of the problem with the lack of free space on the system disk occurred at the time of the massive transition of users from Windows XP to 7. These versions of the system were radically different in the size of the disk space used for their needs. Whereas for a full Windows operation XP was quite sufficient for a system partition of 25-30 GB, a computer with the same disk space on which the then-new Windows 7 was installed, after installing a couple of programs and an accumulation of temporary files, was left without free disk space.

Users Windows versions 8.1 inclusive, when faced with the problem of not enough space on the system disk even after using the standard Disk Cleanup utility or third-party cleaning programs, they are forced to resort to a special type of software - the so-called disk space analyzers. This convenient tools, allowing you to quickly find heavy files and immediately get rid of them, either by deleting them or moving them to another location. Such analyzers scan the contents of the computer and provide data on the disk space occupied by various categories of files. Tabular data in such utilities is often accompanied by diagrams for a visual assessment of the occupied disk space.

1

The built-in disk space analyzer in Windows 10 is the “Storage” section in system settings. It is a synthesis of simplified versions of several system utilities, which many users are accustomed to seeing in separate programs or individual modules of complex software packages. In addition to having, in fact, a tool for analyzing the occupied disk space, the utility built into Windows 10 is equipped with some system cleaning functions and a primitive uninstaller of installed software.

Windows 10's Disk Space Analyzer is found among other system settings inside the Settings app. This is the “Storage” subsection, which can be opened by selecting the “System” section in the main window of the “Settings” application.

2

Like any other settings section, you can quickly get to the “Storage” section using the system search.

“Storage” contains a list of disk partitions and connected storage devices, if any. For each section, data on the total and occupied volume is presented.

4

By opening each disk partition individually, you can see detailed information about the disk space occupied by various categories of files.

5

One of the items in the system partition of the disk is “System and reserved”. Since the utility is designed for ordinary people, there is only information about how much space individual system files take up. Naturally, Windows 10 does not provide any tools for deleting these files. The only thing that is offered to the user is the “Manage System Restore” option, which opens the system properties window with settings for rolling back to a restore point.

6

The “Applications and Games” item is the primitive uninstaller mentioned above installed programs, which doesn't even include removing pre-installed universal apps.

7

Documents, images, and multimedia files are presented in separate categories, but the standard utility does not provide a table of them with the ability to sort them by size. When you click the detailed view button for these files, the system transfers them to the corresponding user profile folders inside Explorer for manual deletion unnecessary files.

8

The “Temporary files” item, unfortunately, does not provide enough detailed information, which files will be deleted. Experienced users are unlikely to experiment with such an understatement, and novice researchers are likely to free up disk space without realizing what was deleted. Read a separate article for more details.

9

The most sensible item in the Windows 10 disk space analyzer can perhaps be considered “Other”. Here, in descending order of size, folders with files that are not categorized as music, video, document, or image are displayed. Files of these categories are usually stored in user profile folders or specially created directories on non-system disk partitions, and you can review their contents in Explorer or a file manager without any disk space analyzers. The latter would be much more useful to remind the user, for example, about storing heavy files, possibly unnecessary distributions operating systems or backup copies.

10

The integrated system analyzer, of course, is far from perfect and is inferior to many third party utilities this software niche both in functionality and in ease of data presentation. In general, little can be said about the new tool: Microsoft has built into the system a good simulator for beginners in computer science, but nothing more.

Have a great day!

Modern size hard drives amounts to terabytes, but the free space on them still disappears somewhere. And if you are the owner of a high-speed, but much less capacious solid state drive, then the situation could become completely catastrophic.

With these three programs, you can visually assess what and how much space is taking up on your disk, and decide whether to clean it up.

The most popular cleaner for Windows has in its arsenal a special tool for searching large files. It is located in the “Service” section and is called “Disk Analysis”.

Disk space usage is illustrated with a pie chart showing the distribution between the main file types - images, documents, videos. Below is a table with detailed information on each type.

After startup and a preliminary assessment of the fullness of the hard drive, WinDirStat provides a complete map of its status. It consists of various squares, the size of which corresponds to the file size, and the color to its type. Clicking on any element allows you to find out its exact size and location on the disk. Using the buttons on the toolbar, you can delete any file or view it in the file manager.

SpaceSniffer - great alternative CCleaner and WinDirStat. This free application can show a disk fullness map in the same way as the previous utility does. However, here you can easily adjust the viewing depth and the amount of detail displayed. This makes it possible to first see the largest catalogs, and then dive deeper into the depths file system until you get to the smallest files.

C reads that there must be at least free space on the system partition of the disk 15% from its full volume so that the Windows system can function fully - without freezes and slowdowns. Now new hard drives It’s rare to find one with a volume less 500 GB, therefore, when dividing the hard drive into partitions, you should not infringe on the system.

The system partition can safely be given order 100 GB. This volume is more than enough for the needs of Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, without the need to constantly clean folders "Temp" and limit the system in space to create restore points.

How to find out which files are taking up a lot of space on your computer's disk?

But if you store user files on the system disk - huge music collections, HD videos, voluminous software distributions - or install modern resource-intensive games on the system disk, over time even 100 GB may not be enough. If Windows displays a message about not enough space on the system disk, it’s time (following cleaning the folders "Temp", of course) analyze the occupied disk space of the computer.

You can restore order in your computer by clearing the disk of unnecessary files using Windows Explorer or file manager. But this effective way under one condition - if it is definitely known where and what kind of heavy files can clutter up the system disk space. Otherwise, it is better to seek help special programs– disk space analyzers. This type of program scans the computer's disks and presents the user with data about all the files he has in a convenient visual and tabular display. Popular disk space analyzers include programs such as: WinDirStat, Scanner, TreeSize Pro. Recently, you can find files on your computer that are wasting disk space using the popular system cleaning program -.

Many people know the free CCleaner program as an effective tool for cleaning temporary files, Internet cache, system registry and other system garbage. WITH 5th version of the CCleaner program has changed somewhat in appearance, and now it matches the design Metro (Modern UI) Windows 8/8.1. But changes in CCleaner affected not only the appearance of the program; the popular cleaner now has functions for analyzing disk space and searching for duplicate files.

Disk analysis using CCleaner

The disk analysis functionality in CCleaner, by and large, is in no way inferior to similar capabilities that are implemented in individual programs, in particular in those mentioned above. In CCleaner, you can get a graphical and informational report on the use of computer disk partitions - both system and non-system. CCleaner presents the files on your computer according to their individual categories - video, music, pictures, documents, archives, email, and other files.

In the program window, select the section "Service" and go to the tab "Disk Analysis". By default, only the main categories of files will be selected for analysis. If necessary, you can add archive files and email. Select the computer disk - C , D , E etc. - and press "Analysis".

CCleaner allows you to sort all categories of files or each category separately by size. This will give you an idea of ​​which specific files take up the most space on a particular disk partition.

By clicking on the appropriate sorting criterion in the table of contents, we can also sort the analysis results by file name, file type (format), and placement path.

At the top left we can see a pie chart with a visual representation of the analysis of occupied space by individual file categories.

Heavier files can be deleted from system disk or transfer them to a non-system one. In the results of disk space analysis, select required file, call context menu and press "Open folder".

A system explorer window will open, where we can remove the file from the system disk or delete it permanently.

Finding Duplicate Files Using CCleaner

CCleaner can now search for duplicate files. To run a search for duplicate files in a section "Service" open the tab "Search for duplicates". In order not to be distracted by lightweight files that will not particularly affect the freeing up of disk space, you can include a filter in the duplicate search criteria that sets the minimum size of the files being searched.

When deleting duplicate files, you must be extremely neat. Don't delete duplicates system files, as well as duplicates of working files of individual programs. CCleaner, as well as similar programs that can search for duplicate files on a computer, look for files with identical names. And the working files of the system and programs may have identical technical names, but be located in different folders (folders of their programs) and, accordingly, serve the purposes different programs. Therefore, you should not delete such duplicates. And when deleting a low-weight configuration file, there will be no serious release of disk space. It is better to get rid of duplicates if they are distributions of operating systems, videos and other heavy files.

Delete found CCleaner program Duplicate files can be found in the same way as in the disk space analysis results.

Call the context menu on the selected file and select the option to open in folder.

The Disk Space Analysis utility allows you to visualize how your hard drive space is being used by determining the size of all directories, including subdirectories and files stored on that drive.

This can be very useful if you want to free up disk space on your computer. Having determined which directories and files take up the most space, it is easy to find unnecessary ones among them and delete them, freeing up maximum space with a minimum of effort.

I described a review of seven paid and free utilities for analyzing used disk space for Mac OS X below in the article.

Review of seven utilities for analyzing free space on a Mac disk

I have arranged the applications in ascending order of impressions of the utility, from negative to positive.

Release date latest version indicated at the time of writing: January 2014.

Application testing was carried out on MacBook Pro Mid 2012 and OS X 10.9.1.

DiskWave

Price: Free
10.08.2012
0.4.0.246
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6 and higher
Website: diskwave.barthe.ph
Apple AppStore: No

The application uses a simple and at the same time convenient way of presenting data, different from all other utilities - directories and files are presented in a regular list. Next to each directory and file their size is written (the font color depends on the size). The list can be sorted by name or size.

The settings are also laconic, but it seems to have everything you need. I don’t like it when there are too many settings and figuring them out becomes a task comparable to flying an airplane.

DiskWave had every chance of becoming an excellent free utility for analyzing disk space, if not for one “but”: I was able to analyze separate folder, but when analyzing the entire disk, the application crashes steadily, and given the date last update, you shouldn’t expect a quick fix.

But suddenly it works for you, try it.

GrandPerspective

Price: Free
Latest version release date: 25.08.2012
Reviewed version: 1.5.1
Website:
Apple AppStore: No

GrandPerspective immediately after launching the application asks you to select a directory to scan. Unlike DiskWave, GrandPerspective coped with scanning the entire disk. After the scan is completed, you can see this slightly psychedelic picture:

Very similar to an image of a processor chip under a microscope. But in terms of practicality, perhaps I don’t understand something, because Disk Inventory X and Space Gremlin also use a similar display, but it’s uncomfortable for me to look at these multi-colored squares and rectangles. You have to force yourself to associate them with files. But maybe this display method will be convenient for you, I don’t know.

Photo of a processor chip under a microscope

What is definitely and objectively inconvenient is the need to click on the squares or hover over them to find out what kind of file is hidden behind them.

But in the settings you can choose a color palette for the squares, for example, “blue mountain tulips”! :)

If this method of visualizing files on disk is convenient for you, then otherwise this application copes with its task.

Space Gremlin

Price: 129 rub. (at the time of publication there was a discount on purchase).
Latest version release date: 1.03.2011
Reviewed version: 1.2
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6 and higher
Website: www.spacegremlinapp.com
Apple AppStore: itunes.apple.com - Space Gremlin

This utility bears a strong resemblance to Disk Inventory X and GrandPerspective in the way it visualizes data, but with the distinct advantage that instead of boxes, files are shown as, believe it or not, files, and directories as containers that contain other directories and files.

The application has no settings, although this may be a limitation of the demo version. Considering that the result of the disk analysis cannot be viewed as a list, but only as a visual display, and that the application has not been updated for several years, I would not spend money on it.

Disk Inspector

Price: 269 ​​rub.
Latest version release date: 08.02.2013
Reviewed version: 1.0.4
System Requirements:
Website: nektony.com/disk-inspector
Apple AppStore: itunes.apple.com - Disk Inspector

Simple both in functionality and in appearance utility. Data on used disk space is presented in the form of a pie chart. The list of files cannot be seen, there is no window with settings. A very simple, I would even say primitive application.

Considering the limited functionality, price and lack of updates after the first release, I cannot recommend Disk Inspector for use.

Disk Expert

Price: 329 rub.
Latest version release date: 22.12.2011
Reviewed version: 1.0.1
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6 and higher
Website: nektony.com/disk-expert
Apple AppStore: itunes.apple.com - Disk Expert

Disk Expert uses a pie chart for visualization, just like Disk Inspector and DaisyDisk. In my opinion, this is the most convenient and visual representation of the contents of the disk that I have seen.

Instead of a list of files, Disk Expert displays the largest files, which is better than nothing, but I find it more convenient when, along with the graphical display, there is also a simple list of directories and files on the disk, sorted by size, for example, like Disk Inventory X, DiskWave and DaisyDisk.

Disk Expert does not have a separate window with settings.

Although this application coped with the analysis of the entire disk, but only once at a time Disk review Expert closed with an error. Considering its price and the fact that updates have not been released almost since the release of the application, I would not recommend spending money on it, although Disk Expert copes with its task.

Disk Inventory X

Price: Free
Latest version release date: 9.10.2005
Reviewed version: 1.0
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 and higher
Website: www.derlien.com
Apple AppStore: No

Despite the fact that the last version of this application was released almost 10 years ago in 2005, it continues to remain not only functional, but also the best among its free counterparts.

Although colored squares are used for visualization, there is also a list of directories and files with their sizes, which makes it easier to understand the information presented. You can also view statistics by content type.

There is nothing supernatural in the application settings.

A good free application, it’s a shame that new versions are not coming out and it looks like it has been abandoned by the developer.

DaisyDisk

Price: 329 rub.
Latest version release date: 26.11.2013
Reviewed version: 3.0.2
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6 and higher (10.5 support available)
Website: www.daisydiskapp.com
Apple AppStore: itunes.apple.com - DaisyDisk

This utility is constantly installed on my Mac and, in my opinion, it has only one drawback - that it is paid.

The data is presented in the form of an easy to read pie chart, and there is also a list of files and directories. Navigation through directories is also made simple and convenient.

The application has everything you need to analyze the used disk space, and there is nothing unnecessary.

Just spartan settings.

This is also the only application in the review that is regularly updated by its creators and continues to have new versions, which is important for an application, especially a paid one.

Conclusion

It seems to me that there are only two options out of all the applications reviewed that are worth paying attention to.

• If the freeness of the application is important to you, then you should stop at Disk Inventory X.
• If you are willing to pay then best option- this is DaisyDisk.

Other applications either lose functionality or have stopped updating, which may lead to them stopping working after the next OS X update.

But it is, of course, up to you to decide which application to choose.