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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

Space Sniffer is a drive space analyzer with a dash of eye candy


We've looked at ways to visualize your disk usage before with apps like WinDirStat, JDiskReport and Xinorbis. Space Sniffer offers the same functionality with a little bit of a twist.

Files and folders are displayed as boxes of various sizes which correspond to the file size. The color scheme is customizable, and Space Sniffer features subtle transition and hover effects. That doesn't make it function any better, of course, but a little eye candy never hurts - and it's always welcome on boring old utilities like a disk analyzer.

If you're overwelmed (or underwhelmed, for that matter) by the number of boxes presented, simply click the more/less detail buttons to adjust the display the way you want. A zoomed-out view lets you quickly locate large folders, while zooming in will give you a better feel for individual files. There's also a quick filter option to limit what's displayed in the main window.

Space Sniffer is also a great addition to your flash drive - it's totally portable and just under 900Kb in size.

[via Freeware Files]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Monitor your hard drive usage with DriveSpacio

DriveSpacio

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]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Xinorbis: Hard core hard drive analyzer

Xinorbis
If you're the sort of person who starts to feel like your new PC with the 250GB hard drive is running out of space about two days after you bring it home from the store, hard disk space analyzers can be your best friend. While we're big fans of WinDirStat for finding the largest files and folders on a disk, Xinorbis packs a few features that WinDirStat lacks.

For example, not only does Xinorbis analyze all of the files on your hard drive, but it will actually sort them into categories like music/sound, movies, programs, graphics, and system files. You can view the results in a pie or bar chart. And you can customize Xinorbis to show files by frequency or size. You can also compare two different hard drives.

Depending on your hard drive size and how many files you've got, it can take a while to run Xinorbis, and it may seem to be unresponsive, but don't give up hope. Odds are it's still working. For ease of use, we still like WinDirStat, but Xinorbis looks like a great tool to have for detailed disk space analysis.

[via gHacks

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