Monitor your hard drive usage with DriveSpacio

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Monitor your hard drive usage with DriveSpacio

by Brad Linder May 12th 2008

DriveSpacio is a free Windows utility for examinging hard drive usage. When you first boot the program you'll get a list of each hard drive and partition on your system, along with, some details like the files system, cluster size, and a pie chart or bar graph showing used and free space.

But the fun really begins when you click on the Folders section. You can choose a folder, or an entire drive (just click C: or E: or what have you in the browse window), and DriveSpacio will plot your folders on a graph showing you which of your folders are eating the most space. It taks a few moments to scan folders with a lot of subfolders or files, but the result is a pretty effective tool for figuring out why you're running out of space on your hard drive.

WinDirStat is another free utility which does pretty much the same thing. But if you prefer the bar graph/pie chart look to WinDirStat's more abstract-looking visualization, DriveSpacio is worth a look. But there is at least one area where WinDirStat holds the edge: while you can delete files from the WinDirStat interface, DriveSpacio only shows you file and folder names. It doesn't let you launch or delete files.

[via Shell Extension City]

Tags: disk-space, disk-usage, drivespacio, windirstat

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jamus said 1:31PM on 5-12-2008

If you don't mind a little java, JDiskReport (my current favorite) is another handy util similar to these:
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/

alienvenom said 7:49AM on 5-13-2008

JDiskReport for the win!

Kevin said 5:14PM on 5-12-2008

TreeSizeFree is another good free program that shows you which folders have the most amount of disk usage. It's really handy when you can't figure out exactly why you have less space than you think you should, and then you find a folder buried deep down somewhere with a ton of large temp files that you can safely delete.

nka said 9:00AM on 5-18-2008

I use SpaceMonger instead. It gives you a visual representation on your hard drive, the larger the folder or file, the larger the box on the drive map. Check it out.

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