Overview of disc space usage?

[Guest]

Is there any way to analyse in one prog where exactly all one's disc space
has gone?
One can use 'add/remove progs' and sort by size, to get an idea of the
situation for programmes, but where and what is the tool for analysing the
whole disc to get an overview of who and what is hogging all the space?

I'm sure I ought to know this already...

Regards,

S

 

[3c273]

Search for a freeware program called ShowMan. It will give you a context
menu for a "Usage Pie Chart" that shows disk usage and allows you to dig
down into subfolders. I have it on all of my machines.
Louis

 

[Rich Barry]

This program has a 30 day free trial.
http://www.newfreedownloads.com/Windows-Utilities/File-Management/Disk-Space-Inspector.html

 

[John]

Is there any way to analyse in one prog where exactly all one's disc space
has gone?
One can use 'add/remove progs' and sort by size, to get an idea of the
situation for programmes, but where and what is the tool for analysing the
whole disc to get an overview of who and what is hogging all the space?

Google for windirstat.

 

[Gerry]

Go to Start, Control Panel, Folder Options, View, Advanced Settings and
verify that the box before "Show hidden files and folders" is checked
and "Hide protected operating system files " is unchecked. You may need
to scroll down to see the second item. You should also make certain that
the box before "Hide extensions for known file types" is not checked.
Next in Windows Explorer make sure View, Details is selected and then
select View, Choose Details and check before Name, Type, Total Size, and
Free Space.

FileSize -a useful tool for use with Windows Explorer when investigating
how disk space is being used.
http://markd.mvps.org/

The download link is not obvious. Click the here in the two sentences of
the web page accessed through the link above. "I can't count the number
of times someone has asked for this. So here is a module you can install
that shows a Folder Size column in Explorer."

Note the Search option in Windows Explorer to search for files over 1
mb. You sort the result in order of size by clicking on size over the
list of files. Search My Computer ensuring you have selected Advanced
Options and clicked on the box before Search System Folders, Search
Hidden Files and Folders and Search Sub-Folders.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[John McGaw]

Is there any way to analyse in one prog where exactly all one's disc space
has gone?
One can use 'add/remove progs' and sort by size, to get an idea of the
situation for programmes, but where and what is the tool for analysing the
whole disc to get an overview of who and what is hogging all the space?

I'm sure I ought to know this already...

Regards,

S

This seems to be a popular program classification which many
freeware/shareware writers tackles at one time or another. Two that I
know of that haven't been mentioned so far are SequoiaView and TreeSize.

John McGaw
http://johnmcgaw.com

 

[Guest]

Phew!

Spoiled for choice now!
Thanks to all for the suggestions: I'll work my way through them.

Cheers,

S

 

[Guest]

Update,

Thanks very much for this tip Louis. David Taylor's software is very handy
(though I found the duplicates finder rather too slow for my m/c and did not
know what was safe to delete afterwards anyway...).

Using the handy pie charts of ShowMan I found that numerous programmes
supposedly uninstalled still had large folders remaining, and that the
programme size given in 'Add/Remove Programmes' is extremely misleading.
For example, one prog - Pixela - looked harmless enough in Add/Remove, at
~2.5 meg, but in fact, ShowMan found its folder was more like 750meg!

With this handy gadget I have managed to recover 1/3 of my laptop's hard
drive!

Nice one Louis (and DT),

S

 

[3c273]

Glad you found it useful.
Louis

Update,

Thanks very much for this tip Louis. David Taylor's software is very handy
(though I found the duplicates finder rather too slow for my m/c and did not
know what was safe to delete afterwards anyway...).

Using the handy pie charts of ShowMan I found that numerous programmes
supposedly uninstalled still had large folders remaining, and that the
programme size given in 'Add/Remove Programmes' is extremely misleading.
For example, one prog - Pixela - looked harmless enough in Add/Remove, at
~2.5 meg, but in fact, ShowMan found its folder was more like 750meg!

With this handy gadget I have managed to recover 1/3 of my laptop's hard
drive!

Nice one Louis (and DT),

S

 

[Tom Porterfield]

Google for windirstat.

I agree, WinDirStat - http://windirstat.info/.

 

[FeMaster]

There are a few other good programs out there. One in particular that I
like is called SequoiaView. It doesn't use a pie chart, but uses blocks to
layout the drive. The bigger the block, the bigger the file size. I'm not
doing a very good job of explaining it, so check out the website...
http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview/

 

[Guest]

I agree, WinDirStat - http://windirstat.info/.

Now had a look at this too. Not one for the colour blind, but very clever.
It could do with offering some suggestions as to what is safe to delete and
what not, but it is handy to get such a vivid 'fractal' and instant
overview.

Cheers,

S