How much disk space. Who ate up space on your hard drive? Comparing analyzer programs Scanner, WinDirStat and Space Sniffer

Ending free place on system disk(in most cases this is drive “C”) creates obvious problems for the user. Moreover, in this mode itself operating system may work unstable - there may be strong “braking”, random program crashes and other troubles. Unfortunately, Windows has the peculiarity of constantly accumulating garbage, and finding it is not always easy. Also, of course, incompetent actions by users cannot be ruled out.

How to understand what is taking up disk space?

First, you need to check the standard custom folders– “Desktop” and “Documents”, the “Downloads” folder and all sorts of temporary folders in the root partition. Next, look at the list of installed programs.
There is an excellent small (and, importantly, free) program that can help you - SequoiaView (checked for viruses). Install it and start scanning the desired disk. The result of the work will be a visual diagram of all files; you will immediately see huge files that are worth paying attention to. This is what it looks like:

When you hover over the “square,” you can find out what kind of file it is, where it is located, and what percentage of the entire partition it occupies. Also, you can enable color scheme, so files different types will be painted in different colors.

What should I do to free up space?

Best to use standard remedy Windows. Click right click mouse on the desired disk, select properties, then click “Disk Cleanup”. A wizard will launch to help you complete the procedure. I do not recommend taking more serious actions, this can only worsen the situation even further.

A convenient free program for determining the size of folders on your computer. The result of the work is displayed in the form of a convenient diagram that clearly displays the sizes of all folders.

Hard disk space has a very insidious property of suddenly running out :). And when “hour X” comes, we begin to feverishly think about what we actually filled our favorite hard drive with. And it’s good if we remember in time about the image we downloaded “last week” weighing about 10 gigabytes... And if not?

In any case, it's easier to use special programs than to manually search for those files that we no longer need, but take up a fair amount of space. Today I will introduce you to one wonderful utility that allows you, as they say, to see with your own eyes how much space on your hard drive is sometimes taken up by unnecessary files.

This program WinDirStat. Its main advantage is that, after scanning the hard drive, it displays not only a file tree, but also complete statistics in the form of a diagram on the occupied space on our PC. In terms of its operating principle and approach to implementing the problem of free space tracking, WinDirStat resembles paid program TreeSize Professional:

Comparison of the WinDirStat program with the paid analogue TreeSize

Unlike paid analogue, WinDirStat is not integrated into the system, which somewhat slows down the scanning speed. Among the disadvantages of the program is the inability to save and print lists of files, as well as the lack of a mechanism for searching for unnecessary and duplicate files.

Also, both programs do not have a function for tracking the size of selected folders, which is present in some (including free) utilities. Otherwise, working with WinDirStat does not cause any complaints.

Installing WinDirStat

The program is installed by running the standard installer. In the first dialog box, you will need to accept the agreement (check the “I agree” box), and then click the “Next” button:

A window for selecting installation components will appear. By default, the installation type is “Custom” with the Russian language automatically selected, but do not forget to check if it is checked. After successful verification, click “Next”, select the installation path (you can leave the standard one) and wait for the installation process to complete. Upon completion, we will be able to run the program:

Scanning hard drives

In the WinDirStat window that opens, we will be asked to select locations to scan. By default, all detected media are scanned (including CD/DVD and USB drives). If you want to track the “clutter” of only one of the partitions, just set the switch to the “Individual disks” position and mark the desired volume.

Well, if you suspect you are “overweight” specific folder, just switch to the “Directory” mode and, by pressing the browse button, select it in the Explorer list.

So, I propose to find out what we have on drive C. To do this, just switch to the “Individual disks” mode and double-click the section we need in the list below. The scanning process will begin, which may take quite some time. long time(depending on disk size):

During the scanning process you will be able to observe status line for the remaining time and RAM usage.

At the end of the scan, the following window will open in front of us:

Essentially, it will be broken into three parts. Top left - file structure selected section with detailed information about the size of each directory and the number of attached files. To the right of the file tree you will see a report on the file types that fill the section with legends of their color designations.

It is worth noting that in both upper parts windows and file types and directories are grouped from largest to smallest. This means that those directories that take up the most space on your hard drive will be displayed at the top.

The third part of the WinDirStat window - the disk map - deserves special attention. This is a simplified layout of all files and folders on the selected hard drive partition. The principle here is that the more space it takes up specific file, the larger the rectangle it will be designated. When you select one of the files, the upper fields display full information about him:

WinDirStat Toolkit

Now let's turn our attention to the toolbar. Here all functions are divided into several groups.

The first (from left to right) includes tools for rescan and disk map updates.

In the second group we will find options such as opening the selected file or folder, copying the path, calling Explorer, launching a command line, as well as updating the selected folder.

IN next group WinDirStat provides us with two types of deletion of the selected file: transfer to the Recycle Bin and permanent erasure:

With WinDirStat we can easily switch from a map of the entire disk to a map specific folder by clicking on the button with a magnifying glass (with the “+” sign). To return to regular map disk, just press the adjacent button (with the “-” sign).

conclusions

WinDirStat is different from others similar programs, first of all, for its simplicity and clarity. Together with this program you will really be able to see what your HDD, and therefore you can easily find those files that take up too much space!

P.S. Permission granted to freely copy and quote. this article subject to indicating open active link to the source and preservation of the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny.

I often receive questions related to the occupied space on the hard drive: users are interested in what is occupied by the space on the hard drive, what can be deleted to clean up the disk, why the free space is constantly decreasing.

This article provides a brief overview free programs for analysis hard drive(or rather, the space on it), allowing you to visually obtain information about which folders and files take up extra gigabytes, figure out where, what and in what volumes is stored on your disk and, based on this information, clean it up. All programs claim to support Windows 8.1 and 7, and I tested them myself in Windows 10 - they work flawlessly.

I note that most often, “leaking” disk space is explained by automatic downloading of files Windows updates, creating restore points, as well as crash programs, as a result of which the system may remain temporary files, occupying several gigabytes.

At the end of this article I will provide additional materials on the site that will help you free up space on your hard drive if the need arises.

WinDirStat disk space analyzer

WinDirStat is one of two free programs in this review that has an interface in Russian, which may be relevant for our user.

After launching WinDirStat, the program automatically starts analyzing either all local disks, or, at your request, scans busy place on selected drives. You can also analyze what a specific folder on your computer is doing.

As a result, the program window displays a tree structure of folders on the disk, indicating the sizes and percentage of total space.

Displayed at the bottom graphical representation folders and their contents, which is also connected to a filter in the upper right part, which allows you to quickly determine the space occupied by individual types of files (for example, in my screenshot, you can quickly detect a certain large temporary file with the .tmp extension).

You can download WinDirStat from the official website https://windirstat.info/download.html

Free Disk Analyzer

Program Free Disk Analyzer by Extensoft is another hard drive usage analysis utility in Russian, which allows you to check what space is occupied, find the largest folders and files, and, based on the analysis, make an informed decision about cleaning up space on the HDD.

After launching the program, you will see a tree structure of disks and folders on them on the left side of the window, on the right - the contents of the currently selected folder, indicating the size, percentage of occupied space, and a diagram with a graphical representation of the space occupied by the folder.

Additionally, in Free Disk Analyzer there are tabs “Most large files" and "Largest folders" for quick search those, as well as buttons for quick access to Windows utilities"Disk Cleanup" and "Add or Remove Programs".

Official website of the program: http://www.extensoft.com/?p=free_disk_analyzer (On the website at this moment it's called Free Disk Usage Analyzer).

Disk Savvy

Free version of the space analyzer at Disk Savvy (there is also a paid Pro version), although it does not support the Russian language, is perhaps the most functional of all the tools listed here.

Among available opportunities not only a visual display of used disk space and its distribution into folders, but also flexible options to classify files by type, examine hidden files, analyze network drives, and also view, save or print diagrams various types, representing information about disk space usage.

Download free version You can Disk Savvy from the official website http://disksavvy.com

TreeSize Free

The TreeSize Free utility, on the contrary, is the simplest of the programs presented: it does not draw beautiful diagrams, but it works without installation on the computer and for some it may seem even more informative than the previous options.

After launch, the program analyzes the occupied disk space or the folder you select and presents it in a hierarchical structure, which displays all the necessary information on the occupied disk space.

Additionally, it is possible to launch the program in the interface for devices with a touch screen (in Windows 10 and Windows 8.1). TreeSize Free official website: https://jam-software.com/treesize_free/

SpaceSniffer

SpaceSniffer is a free, portable (does not require installation on your computer) program that allows you to understand the folder structure on your hard drive in much the same way as WinDirStat does.

The interface allows you to visually determine which folders on the disk take up the most space, navigate through this structure (by double-clicking the mouse), and also filter the displayed data by type, date or file name.

You can download SpaceSniffer for free here (official website): www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer (note: it is better to run the program as Administrator, otherwise it will report that access to some folders is denied).

We all often ask the pressing question: “Where did the space on the hard drive go?” It seems that nothing heavy was installed, but the disk stubbornly insists that it is already 90% full, and does not allow it to work normally. Nothing, and there will be justice for such people! Today we will introduce three simple, free, but effective analyzers disk space, and at the same time we will choose which program is right for you.

This program is called Scanner, and it was developed by Steffen Gerlach, a programmer from Germany. The first version for Windows was released on March 14, 1999; Today there are versions for MAC OS X and Linux. We will be looking at version 2.13, which was released on July 12, 2012.

It weighs a little - only 150 kb when unpacked. Moreover, it does not require installation; you can carry it with you on a flash drive and run it directly from it on any computer. Let's download our program and see what it can do.

Yeah, it came in a zip archive. Now let's admire her work.

We launch Scanner, hoping that everything will go without a hitch. However, it works quickly: I didn’t even have time to blink, and the program had already started tracking files.

Here, all the disks on my computer are displayed in the form of a simple sun diagram. We need to look at where and how Scanner displays information.

In the center of the circle we see the number 699 GB - this is exactly how much space is occupied on hard drives. We point the cursor at the first ray that comes across and look with interest at what is sitting there.

This upwardly expanding tail, consisting of segments, is occupied, as we see, by BioWar's Mass Effect 3. In the right top corner The number of gigabytes and files is indicated.

Let's look further. Let's try to find out where ourselves hard disks, and somewhere - what they are filled with. We point the cursor at the sector of the circle, limited by the radius lines, and instantly understand that this is disk J. There are still as many as 86.3 GB free on it.

You can see everything in detail. 93,733 files occupy 146 GB and they naively think that no one will ever know about it. No, guys, you too have been dealt with: I see and root directories, and all other ramifications.

Click on one of the segments with the right mouse button; a menu appears, with the help of which we see what is hiding on the desktop.

And here we have a desktop, scanned down to the smallest detail. The information occupies 41.3 gigabytes, with 45,392 files sitting there.

On the right we see buttons; the top one, in an orange oval, will take us to “Add or remove programs”; under it, in the green ellipsoid, is “Empty Trash”; just below there is a button highlighted in red, cleverly called “Parent Folder”, marked in yellow “Back” and a completely naked “Update Folder”. Now let's take it and remove something unnecessary. For example, the saves of The Witcher, which I demolished a long time ago and forgot that I played it.

Right-click on a segment and a menu will appear.

Yes, they actually have been lurking there for a hundred years like unnecessary autosaves. Down with them! If I want to replay, I won't need them anyway. And at the same time I will delete the heavy folder with the archive.

If you deleted something small from the subdirectories, right-click on this segment and select “Update”.

Simple and extremely effective program, is not it? Everything is intuitive, clear, beautiful and does not take up much space. And most importantly, this scanner will easily find everything that is hidden from your eyes. It’s not good, but you are always aware of the lives of your loved ones.

The next candidate for close examination was the WinDirStat program, short for Windows Directory Statistics.

This disk space analyzer was released in 2003 by programmers Bernhard Seufert and Oliver Schneider; The authors honestly admit that they were inspired by the KDirStat program for Linux. Latest version 1.1.2, which we will work with, was released on September 2, 2007.

Download it and begin the installation. Don't forget to choose Russian! And thank the translator Sergei Poletaev, who simplified our work with the program.

Installed - let's launch. WinDirStat runs a little slower than Scanner, but still does not slow down when turning: it quickly opens the window and begins the analysis.

A detailed scan has begun. I was terribly scared when I saw the yellow smiley faces; they ran back and forth and opened their mouths insidiously.

It took me five or six minutes, no more, to hiccup in horror and think that right now an evil spy program was transferring information from my computer to someone or eating files alive. WinDirStat thought and produced a multi-colored picture. Incredible, but true: these are hard drives as interpreted by WinDitStat.

Hmmm, this riot of colors evokes certain thoughts about whether the developers have a sense of beauty. Okay, let's not judge someone else's creativity by its clothes, it's better to see what it can do. Let's click, for example, on drive C. The program immediately highlighted it with a white rectangle.

At the top right is a color breakdown; each corresponds to a specific file type. For example, blue is a disk image file, acid pink is WinRAR archive, turquoise metallic - sound in MP3 format. To see where everything is, at least as a first approximation, click on the cross next to drive E and select the Music folder. We see that the program highlights it with white lines.

Now we need to decide what to delete and what to pardon. We choose the most unnecessary file, which has long been an eyesore with its presence on the hard drive; click “Cleaning” on top panel tools. The program throws out a menu and offers to choose one of the actions: open in Explorer, call command line, delete to trash or delete permanently.

Let's take a look at how the WinDirStat program is configured. Click “Settings” on the top toolbar, a menu with lines appears. By checking the boxes to the left of the offers we need, we can force the program to show only what is needed right now.

The advantages of WinDirStat are Russification, clarity and the ability to immediately find an image the desired file, simply by clicking on it in the folder. There is only one minus - the eye-catching colors, but perhaps some users will not find them so scary, or the need to use only this program will outweigh its, frankly, slightly ridiculous appearance.

Our third today will be the Space Sniffer disk space analyzer.

Developer: Uderzo Software

The program was created by Italian programmers under the leadership of Umberto Uderzo. The first version was released on April 18, 2009; the latest, 1.1.4.0 - this is what we will consider - was released on February 7, 2012.

The program was downloaded again as a zip archive. We need to check what is there and how to use it. Install Space Sniffer; we are immediately prompted to select a folder to check.

The scan didn’t just go, it actually flew. After a few seconds, the program had already checked 62% of the disk space. If you hover your cursor over one of the rectangles, you can see when this folder was created.

And now our check is over, everything is visible, everything is clear for now. Each rectangle is labeled, indicating how much space the item takes up on the hard drive.

Move the cursor over any of the folders, double-click on it and see what lies inside.

Wow! There are a lot of files there, all signed, and each one has an indication of when it was created and how much it weighs. By clicking on green arrow, you can go back.

This system is called TreeMap; it was invented by Professor Ben Schneiderman of the University of Maryland. IN WinDirStat program TreeMap is also used, but it does not look as attractive as Space Sniffer.

If you need to mark any of the files, move the cursor over it and press Ctrl + 1. Now the picture looks like this:

You can find old files created, say, two years ago. To do this, enter the value >2years in the filter field, click on the “Filter” button and see what we got. These files are shown here:

The filter in Space Sniffer has one more most useful function. When you want to view files only of a certain type, you need to enter them in the filter field. Let's take, for example, pictures in .JPG format

We write them like this: *.JPG and get an image.

To, on the contrary, filter out all files of the .JPG type and admire the rest, we write: |*.JPG

And we see a completely different window:

You can filter both the type and creation date of a file. Now let's try to do this. Enter it into the filter field *.JPG;

We get, accordingly, the program window.

There are many combinations for the filter; you can vary the filtering as you like.

It’s a good program that doesn’t require a lot of brainpower, but at the same time it’s quite sophisticated, informative and easy to use. A small minus for the lack of complete Russification and dialogue only in English language; However, nowadays even a child can write several foreign letters in the filter field.

Briefly about the main thing: of the three presented programs, the first, Scanner, is good for a simple, quick search and removal of files that have chopped off a fair amount of space on the hard drive; the third, Space Sniffer, perfectly helps to understand all the data at once and filter it according to the user’s wishes; the second, WinDirStat, boasts Russification and visualization of file types.

I'll keep the Scanner and Space Sniffer. You, dear readers, looking at the work of three disk space analyzer programs, you can choose which one you like best.