When it comes to managing hard drive space, there are a few things you can do to help ensure your data is safe and sound. One way to do this is to use WinDirStat, a free utility that can help you analyze your hard drive space and determine where you may need to allocate more space. WinDirStat can be used in two ways: as a simple tool for determining the size of your hard drive and as a tool for managing your hard drive space. The first step is to open WinDirStat and click on the “File” tab. From here, you will see a list of all the files on your hard drive. This list will include both folders and files. The next step is to select one of the files in the list and click on the “Size” tab. This tab will show you how much space each file occupies on your hard drive. You can see that there are many files in this list, but only a few of them occupy an excessive amount of disk space. The next step is to select one of the folders in this list and click on the “Size” tab again. This time, you will see how much disk space each folder occupies on your hard drive. You can see that there are many folders in this list, but only a few of them occupy an excessive amount of disk space. Now that you have seen how much disk space each file occupies on your hard drive, it’s time to allocate some more room for these files by selecting one of the folders in this list and clicking on the “Allocate Space” button. This button will give you information about how much disk space each file needs in order to be stored properly on your hard drive. You can see that most of these files need less disk space than they did before, but there are somefiles that need more room than they did before. Now that you know how much disk space each file needs in order to
Installation
Installing WinDirStat is as easy at it gets… the one thing to point out is that if running on legacy systems you want to make sure to check ANSI as a core component.
Using WinDirStat
When first launching WinDirStat you get the option to select All or Individual drives, you can even choose to scan a single folder. For this example I will go ahead and scan my local drive.
While scanning you can view the progress. Check out the cool Pac-Man animations! I am such a sucker for geek nostalgia =)
The scan tool a bit under a minute, and you end up with a nice graphical representation of the files on your hard drive.
WinDirStat has three sections the Directory List, Extension List, and the graphically crazy colored Treemap. The colors on the extension list correspond with the location of the type of file on the Treemap.
Use different view options to change the look of the utility or amount of data shown in the Treemap. When you mouse over a certain section on the Treemap you can choose to clean that file up, look at its properties, or open the directory it is in via Windows Explorer.
Of course there are customizable settings, here is an example of changing the Treemap color patterns.
Conclusion
The Treemap provides the ability to easily go to each directory or individual file on a hard drive. It is also a very nice graphical representation of each type of file extension. If you have ever wondered what files are taking up so much space this will neatly show you the culprit and allow them to be cleaned directly from the GUI. WinDirStat will work on all versions of Windows from 95 up to Vista. This is great for legacy systems still operation that need maintenance.
Download WinDirStat for All Versions Of Windows From Ninite
