This is the one that over time there is little space. On the one hand, we bought ourselves 1 TB and it seems good, now everything will work. But over time, it turns out that it gets “clogged” and you don’t want to remove the old one (in case it comes in handy), but there is no place for a new one.
Then there comes a moment during which something can be freed. But sometimes this is not enough.
Then a reasonable question arises in my head: But what is taking up so much space on my disk?".
First of all, they “go” to the folders with films, then games and programs. And you have to remove them by grinding your teeth.
So, I won’t bore you, but I’ll write about several programs whose purpose is to show how many and which files (folders) take up the most space on your disk. Of course, all of them (like all the programs provided on my website) are free.
Looking ahead, I’ll tell you that the meaning is the same for everyone - to analyze the system and show in a visual form what and how it takes up space, while showing some additional capabilities. As a result, you can see and delete (if desired) unnecessary large files.
The first program to analyze a disk and search for large files and folders is WinDirStat.
After installation and launch, the main program window will look like this:
In it you can specify what exactly needs to be scanned: all drives, a specific drive or a separate folder.
After selection (I selected one system drive), the scanning process will begin:
Which will produce the result. The program window is divided into 3 parts:
1 - result by folder
2 - result for files (types/) indicating their legend
3 - general diagram. The meaning is simple - the more space it takes, the larger the display.
For convenience, the results are shown in descending order, i.e. The "largest" files are displayed at the top.
This way you can clearly see which files and folders take up how much space on the disk.
Now let's look at what you can do with this information besides simply viewing, namely, pay attention to the top menu with buttons:
Since the program is in Russian and the buttons contain tooltips, I can only list what you can do with a folder or file directly from this program:
As you can see, all the most necessary functions.
By the way, using this program you can also check external and network drives.
Another similar program is JDiskReport.
It differs from the previous one primarily in the absence of the Russian language.
After launch, you will be prompted to select a directory to scan and open the saved analysis file.
You can specify the whole disk and go ahead:
The window is divided into two parts: the left one indicates the location, and the right one generates a diagram.
Let's deal with the left part.
It displays a list of directories sorted by "majority", i.e. The more space a folder takes up, the higher it is. It's the same story in the subfolders.
The right side is much more interesting.
At the bottom you can change the type of diagram (out of four provided) and enable the display of files (check Show files).
At the top you can switch to the 50 “best” files ( top 50), see how many files in size occupy certain spaces ( Size Dist), when and how many files were last modified ( Modified) and how much space certain types of files take up ( Types).
In the top menu of the program itself, only two switches are interesting: the first, for sorting alphabetically (and not by “most”), the second to display the number of files (and not the volume).
But you can only view this information. To delete files, you will have to open Explorer and look for this folder or file there. But you can also right-click on the folder and select Open Explorer... to open.
The following program for analyzing and searching large files is Scanner.
The program differs from the previous ones in that it does not require installation (portable).
After launch, it immediately scans all disks and shows summary information:
You can select a specific drive, the scan result will show the volume of folders:
The post contains a list of the 20 best free tools for partitioning, diagnostics, encryption, recovery, cloning, and formatting disks. In general, almost everything you need for basic work with them.
1.TestDisk
TestDisk allows you to recover boot partitions, deleted partitions, fix damaged partition tables and restore data, as well as create copies of files from deleted/inaccessible partitions.Note: PhotoRec is a related application to TestDisk. With its help, it is possible to recover data from digital camera memory on hard drives and CDs. In addition, you can restore basic image formats, audio files, text documents, HTML files and various archives.
When you run TestDisk, you are presented with a list of hard drive partitions that you can work with. The selection of available actions carried out in sections includes: analysis to adjust the structure (and subsequent recovery, if a problem is detected); changing disk geometry; deleting all data in the partition table; boot partition recovery; listing and copying files; recovering deleted files; creating a snapshot of the section.
2. EaseUS Partition Master
EaseUS Partition Master is a tool for working with hard drive partitions. It allows you to create, move, merge, split, format, change their size and location without losing data. It also helps to recover deleted or lost data, check partitions, move the OS to another HDD/SSD, etc.
On the left is a list of operations that can be performed with the selected section.
3.WinDirStat
The free program WinDirStat analyzes the used disk space. Shows how data is distributed and which ones take up more space.Clicking on a field in the diagram will display the file in question in a structural form.
After loading WinDirStat and selecting disks for analysis, the program scans the directory tree and provides statistics in the following options: list of directories; directory map; list of extensions.
4. Clonezilla
Clonezilla creates a disk image of the cloning tool, which is also packaged with Parted Magic and is initially available as a standalone tool. Available in two versions: Clonezilla Live and Clonezilla SE (Server Edition).
Clonezilla Live is a bootable Linux distribution that allows you to clone individual devices.
Clonezilla SE is a package that is installed on a Linux distribution. It is used to clone multiple computers simultaneously over a network.
5. OSFMount
Using this utility makes it possible to mount previously made disk images and present them as virtual drives, directly viewing the data itself. OSFMount supports image files such as: DD, ISO, BIN, IMG, DD, 00n, NRG, SDI, AFF, AFM, AFD and VMDK.
An additional function of OSFMount is the creation of RAM disks located in the computer's RAM, which significantly speeds up working with them. To start the process, go to File > Mount new virtual disk.
6. Defraggler
Defraggler is a free program for defragmenting your hard drive, which helps increase its speed and lifespan. A special feature of the program is the ability to defragment individual files.
Defraggler analyzes the contents on the disk and displays a list of all fragmented files. During the defragmentation process, the movement of data on the disk is displayed. Those highlighted in yellow are data that is being read, and those highlighted in green are those that are being written. Upon completion, Defraggler displays a corresponding message.
Supports NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT file systems.
7. SSD Life
SSDLife - diagnoses a solid-state drive, displays information about its condition and estimates its expected service life. Supports remote monitoring, manages performance levels on some hard drive models.
By monitoring SSD wear, you can increase the level of data security and identify problems in a timely manner. Based on the analysis, the program concludes how often the solid-state drive is used.
8. Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN)
A fairly popular free utility, DBAN, is used to clean up hard drives.
DBAN has two main modes: interactive mode and automatic mode. Interactive mode allows you to prepare the disk for data removal and select the necessary erasing options. Automatic mode cleans all detected drives.
9.HD Tune
The HD Tune utility is designed to work with hard drives and SSDs. Measures the HDD/SSD read-write level, scans for errors, checks the disk status and displays information about it.
When launching the application, you need to select a drive from the drop-down list and go to the appropriate tab to view the information.
10.VeraCrypt
VeraCrypt is a free and open source encryption application. On-the-fly encryption is used.
The VeraCrypt project was created on the basis of TrueCrypt with the goal of strengthening methods for protecting encryption keys.
11. CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo displays the status of hard drives that support S.M.A.R.T technology. The utility monitors, evaluates the general condition and displays detailed information about hard drives (firmware version, serial number, standard, interface, total operating time, etc.). CrystalDiskInfo has support for external hard drives.
The top panel on the screen displays all active hard drives. Clicking on each one reveals the information. The Health Status and Temperature icons change color depending on the value.
12. Recuva
The Recuva utility is used to recover accidentally deleted or lost files. It scans the desired storage medium and then displays a list of deleted files. Each file has its own parameters (name, type, path, recovery probability, status).
The required files are identified using the preview function and marked with checkboxes. You can sort the search result by type (graphics, music, documents, videos, archives) and immediately view the contents.
13.TreeSize
The TreeSize program shows a tree of directories located on the hard drive, providing information about their sizes, and also analyzes the use of disk space.
Folder sizes are displayed from largest to smallest. This way it becomes clear which folders take up the most space.
Note: With Defraggler, Recuva and TreeSize, you can initiate Defraggler and Recuva functions for a specific folder directly from TreeSize - all three applications integrate seamlessly.
14.HDDScan
HDDScan is a hard drive diagnostic utility used to test storage devices (HDD, RAID, Flash) to identify errors. Views S.M.A.R.T. attributes, displays hard drive temperature sensor readings in the taskbar and performs a read-write comparison test.
HDDScan is designed for testing SATA, IDE, SCSI, USB, FifeWire (IEEE 1394) drives.
15.Disk2vhd
The free Disk2vhd utility converts a live physical disk into a virtual Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) for the Microsoft Hyper-V platform. Moreover, a VHD image can be created directly from a running operating system.
Disk2vhd creates one VHD file for each disk with selected volumes, preserving information about disk partitions and copying only the data that belongs to the selected volume.
16. NTFSWalker
The portable utility NTFSWalker allows you to analyze all records (including deleted data) in the main file table MFT of an NTFS disk.
The presence of its own NTFS drivers makes it possible to view the file structure without the help of Windows on any computer reading media. Deleted files, regular files, as well as detailed attributes for each file are available for viewing.
17.GParted
- open source disk partition editor. Performs efficient and secure partition management (creation, deletion, resizing, moving, copying, checking) without data loss.
GParted allows you to create partition tables (MS-DOS or GPT), enable, disable and change attributes, align partitions, recover data from damaged partitions and much more.
18. SpeedFan
The SpeedFan computer program monitors the performance of sensors on the motherboard, video card and hard drives, with the ability to regulate the rotation speed of installed fans. It is possible to carry out automatic and manual adjustment.
SpeedFan works with hard drives with SATA, EIDE and SCSI interfaces.
19. MyDefrag
MyDefrag is a free disk defragmenter that is used to organize data located on hard drives, floppy disks, USB drives and memory cards.
The program has a convenient function of working in screensaver mode, as a result of which defragmentation will be performed at the time designated for launching the screen saver. MyDefrag also allows you to create or customize your own scripts.
20. DiskCryptor
Using the open source encryption program DiskCryptor, you can completely encrypt a disk (all disk partitions, including the system one).
DiskCryptor has quite high performance - it is one of the fastest disk volume encryption drivers. The program supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and exFAT file systems, allowing you to encrypt internal or external drives.
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 Microsoft's operating system earlier, when computer hard drives provided 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. While a system partition of 25-30 GB was sufficient for full operation of Windows XP, 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 of Windows versions up to and including 8.1, faced with the problem of running out of space on the system disk even after using the standard Disk Cleanup utility or third-party cleaning programs, are forced to resort to a special type of software - so-called disk space analyzers. These are convenient tools that allow you to quickly find hefty 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 charts 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 above-mentioned primitive uninstaller of installed programs, which does not even provide for the removal of pre-installed universal applications.
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 to the corresponding user profile folders inside Explorer to manually delete unnecessary files.
8 The “Temporary files” item, unfortunately, does not provide sufficiently detailed information about 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, perhaps unnecessary distributions of operating systems or backup copies.
10 The integrated system analyzer, of course, is far from perfect and is inferior to many third-party utilities of 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!
If you use an SSD drive or a small hard drive, then you probably run out of disk space from time to time. Typically, in such cases, you have to manually go through the folders and examine their contents in order to determine what can be deleted to free up space. Fortunately, this process can be greatly simplified and speeded up. In this article we will talk about how to quickly find out what is taking up disk space.
If you need to find out what's taking up disk space, the easiest way to do this is to use the free WinDirStat program. This program analyzes the contents of the disk and builds a visual map with which you can easily find the files and folders that take up the most space on the disk. You can download the WinDirStat program.
After launching the WinDirStat program, a window will appear in which you need to indicate what exactly you want to analyze. If you don’t know where exactly on the disk the files that take up a lot of space are located, then simply select the disk and click on the “OK” button.
If you know a folder that takes up a lot of space, you can select it right away. In this case, WinDirStat will only analyze files in the folder you select.
After selecting a disk or folder, you need to wait until the program finishes analyzing. In the window title you can see how many percent are left.
After completing the analysis, you can begin working with the WinDirStat program. At the top left of the program interface there will be a list of folders. In this case, to the right of each folder it will be indicated how much space this folder takes up in gigabytes and percentage. Thanks to this, you can quickly find the folders that take up the most disk space.
Statistics on file types will be shown in the upper right part of the program window. In this case, on the right it will be indicated how much space which files take up. It also indicates the color that indicates this type of file on the map below.
The most useful information available in WinDirStat is at the bottom of the window. Here is a map that makes it easy to find the files that take up the most disk space. By clicking on any of the files on the map, you will see this file in the list of folders.
If you find files you don't need, you can delete them directly from the WinDirStat program. To do this, right-click on the file in the directory list and select “Delete to Trash” or “Delete permanently.”
It should be noted that deleting files to the Recycle Bin allows you to later restore the file, but this deletion method does not free up disk space. In this case, space is freed only after emptying the Trash. To immediately free up space occupied by a file, use permanent deletion.
If the WinDirStat program for some reason does not suit you, then you can try using other similar programs. For example, you can use programs such as Free Disk Analyzer, Disk Savvy, TreeSize Free or SpaceSniffer.
The post contains a list of the 20 best free tools for partitioning, diagnostics, encryption, recovery, cloning, and formatting disks. In general, almost everything you need for basic work with them.
1.TestDisk
TestDisk allows you to recover boot partitions, deleted partitions, fix damaged partition tables and restore data, as well as create copies of files from deleted/inaccessible partitions.Note: PhotoRec is a related application to TestDisk. With its help, it is possible to recover data from digital camera memory on hard drives and CDs. In addition, you can restore basic image formats, audio files, text documents, HTML files and various archives.
When you run TestDisk, you are presented with a list of hard drive partitions that you can work with. The selection of available actions carried out in sections includes: analysis to adjust the structure (and subsequent recovery, if a problem is detected); changing disk geometry; deleting all data in the partition table; boot partition recovery; listing and copying files; recovering deleted files; creating a snapshot of the section.
2. EaseUS Partition Master
EaseUS Partition Master is a tool for working with hard drive partitions. It allows you to create, move, merge, split, format, change their size and location without losing data. It also helps to recover deleted or lost data, check partitions, move the OS to another HDD/SSD, etc.
On the left is a list of operations that can be performed with the selected section.
3.WinDirStat
The free program WinDirStat analyzes the used disk space. Shows how data is distributed and which ones take up more space.Clicking on a field in the diagram will display the file in question in a structural form.
After loading WinDirStat and selecting disks for analysis, the program scans the directory tree and provides statistics in the following options: list of directories; directory map; list of extensions.
4. Clonezilla
Clonezilla creates a disk image of the cloning tool, which is also packaged with Parted Magic and is initially available as a standalone tool. Available in two versions: Clonezilla Live and Clonezilla SE (Server Edition).
Clonezilla Live is a bootable Linux distribution that allows you to clone individual devices.
Clonezilla SE is a package that is installed on a Linux distribution. It is used to clone multiple computers simultaneously over a network.
5. OSFMount
Using this utility makes it possible to mount previously made disk images and present them as virtual drives, directly viewing the data itself. OSFMount supports image files such as: DD, ISO, BIN, IMG, DD, 00n, NRG, SDI, AFF, AFM, AFD and VMDK.
An additional function of OSFMount is the creation of RAM disks located in the computer's RAM, which significantly speeds up working with them. To start the process, go to File > Mount new virtual disk.
6. Defraggler
Defraggler is a free program for defragmenting your hard drive, which helps increase its speed and lifespan. A special feature of the program is the ability to defragment individual files.
Defraggler analyzes the contents on the disk and displays a list of all fragmented files. During the defragmentation process, the movement of data on the disk is displayed. Those highlighted in yellow are data that is being read, and those highlighted in green are those that are being written. Upon completion, Defraggler displays a corresponding message.
Supports NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT file systems.
7. SSD Life
SSDLife - diagnoses a solid-state drive, displays information about its condition and estimates its expected service life. Supports remote monitoring, manages performance levels on some hard drive models.
By monitoring SSD wear, you can increase the level of data security and identify problems in a timely manner. Based on the analysis, the program concludes how often the solid-state drive is used.
8. Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN)
A fairly popular free utility, DBAN, is used to clean up hard drives.
DBAN has two main modes: interactive mode and automatic mode. Interactive mode allows you to prepare the disk for data removal and select the necessary erasing options. Automatic mode cleans all detected drives.
9.HD Tune
The HD Tune utility is designed to work with hard drives and SSDs. Measures the HDD/SSD read-write level, scans for errors, checks the disk status and displays information about it.
When launching the application, you need to select a drive from the drop-down list and go to the appropriate tab to view the information.
10.VeraCrypt
VeraCrypt is a free and open source encryption application. On-the-fly encryption is used.
The VeraCrypt project was created on the basis of TrueCrypt with the goal of strengthening methods for protecting encryption keys.
11. CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo displays the status of hard drives that support S.M.A.R.T technology. The utility monitors, evaluates the general condition and displays detailed information about hard drives (firmware version, serial number, standard, interface, total operating time, etc.). CrystalDiskInfo has support for external hard drives.
The top panel on the screen displays all active hard drives. Clicking on each one reveals the information. The Health Status and Temperature icons change color depending on the value.
12. Recuva
The Recuva utility is used to recover accidentally deleted or lost files. It scans the desired storage medium and then displays a list of deleted files. Each file has its own parameters (name, type, path, recovery probability, status).
The required files are identified using the preview function and marked with checkboxes. You can sort the search result by type (graphics, music, documents, videos, archives) and immediately view the contents.
13.TreeSize
The TreeSize program shows a tree of directories located on the hard drive, providing information about their sizes, and also analyzes the use of disk space.
Folder sizes are displayed from largest to smallest. This way it becomes clear which folders take up the most space.
Note: With Defraggler, Recuva and TreeSize, you can initiate Defraggler and Recuva functions for a specific folder directly from TreeSize - all three applications integrate seamlessly.
14.HDDScan
HDDScan is a hard drive diagnostic utility used to test storage devices (HDD, RAID, Flash) to identify errors. Views S.M.A.R.T. attributes, displays hard drive temperature sensor readings in the taskbar and performs a read-write comparison test.
HDDScan is designed for testing SATA, IDE, SCSI, USB, FifeWire (IEEE 1394) drives.
15.Disk2vhd
The free Disk2vhd utility converts a live physical disk into a virtual Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) for the Microsoft Hyper-V platform. Moreover, a VHD image can be created directly from a running operating system.
Disk2vhd creates one VHD file for each disk with selected volumes, preserving information about disk partitions and copying only the data that belongs to the selected volume.
16. NTFSWalker
The portable utility NTFSWalker allows you to analyze all records (including deleted data) in the main file table MFT of an NTFS disk.
The presence of its own NTFS drivers makes it possible to view the file structure without the help of Windows on any computer reading media. Deleted files, regular files, as well as detailed attributes for each file are available for viewing.
17.GParted
- open source disk partition editor. Performs efficient and secure partition management (creation, deletion, resizing, moving, copying, checking) without data loss.
GParted allows you to create partition tables (MS-DOS or GPT), enable, disable and change attributes, align partitions, recover data from damaged partitions and much more.
18. SpeedFan
The SpeedFan computer program monitors the performance of sensors on the motherboard, video card and hard drives, with the ability to regulate the rotation speed of installed fans. It is possible to carry out automatic and manual adjustment.
SpeedFan works with hard drives with SATA, EIDE and SCSI interfaces.
19. MyDefrag
MyDefrag is a free disk defragmenter that is used to organize data located on hard drives, floppy disks, USB drives and memory cards.
The program has a convenient function of working in screensaver mode, as a result of which defragmentation will be performed at the time designated for launching the screen saver. MyDefrag also allows you to create or customize your own scripts.
20. DiskCryptor
Using the open source encryption program DiskCryptor, you can completely encrypt a disk (all disk partitions, including the system one).
DiskCryptor has quite high performance - it is one of the fastest disk volume encryption drivers. The program supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and exFAT file systems, allowing you to encrypt internal or external drives.
