When you buy a PC, inside there is the hard disk, the hard disk on which the data and files are written. In recent years these hard drives are getting bigger and bigger in terms of gigabytes and more and more data is coming into them.
The fact remains that, both those who own an older PC and those who, despite having large and modern hard drives, are often in front of the computer, installing and downloading large files such as films or video games or programs and still filling the available space.
To control the use of the hard disk, you can use the simple Windows tool, when you right click on the local disk but that information shows an almost useless data.
What is really needed is a tool that highlights the larger files and their location so that, if they are useless or unused, they are deleted.
The problem is not trivial because Windows is a system composed of many folders and very often some large files are placed in paths and subfolders that, a normal person, would never go to look at.
In another post we saw how to delete unused files with recommended programs to save disk space, automatically, but we must specify that many large files are not detected by these software and you have to find and delete them manually.
Let's see then the best software that control the disk space, both used and unused, giving graphic evidence of the largest folders, the heaviest files and their paths, so you can see them immediately and, if necessary, delete them .
1) SpaceSniffer a small portable tool, which does not need installation, which just needs to be started to make it scan all the files on the hard disk. It highlights the largest folders and subfolders and, by double clicking on one of them, offers all the details on the space used.
There are also options to show the space that cannot be detected (unknown space) and the empty space (free space).
The practical utility of the tool comes from its cured graphics that facilitate the glance to find the largest files immediately.
2) Spyglass is one of the best tools to graphically check how disk space is used, what are the largest files and also to locate duplicate files so that they can be deleted.
3) Ablessoft FolderVisualizer is instead a richer and larger program with which to view the space occupied by each folder and directory on the PC.
A disk scan analyzes the space by displaying a complete list of files and folders to identify which data can be removed to free up space.
The information is displayed in numerous formats including pie charts.
You can see the top 100 largest files and there are graphical and statistical representations very useful for a complete analysis.
It can analyze both internal and external hard drives, including USB sticks.
4) OverDisk works in more depth and has a completely different graphic. The pie chart is very detailed and seems to dissect the real hard disk.
This highlights the larger folders and subfolders to find which files are larger.
The aim is always to see how the hard disk is used and how much space is available to upload new files.
Among the statistical information, very numerous, there is also that which gives information on the disk clusters, their size and their implication in the space used or not of the hard drive.
Other functions then allow you to search with different filters, highlighting the largest fils, those with the longest paths or names, the folders with the most files inside, and much more.
5) Disk Sorter allows you to view files and folders graphically and see the list of all the items classified by various categories.
Thanks to the filters it is easy to view only certain types of files, for example only those that are between 100 MB and 1 GB in size, or those .exe or those that have never been used for two or more years.
6) JDiskReport is a software aimed at seeing visual reports about the use of your hard disk and on individual folders and is very useful for checking if there are very large files that take up space.
7) Xinorbis is also a very good program that offers graphics to verify the use of the disk and the space used by individual files and folders.
8) TreeSize is a simple program that allows you to graphically display the space occupied by each folder.
9) RidNacs is a tool that adds the disk space display item to the right mouse button options menu.
The graphic indication of the space occupied by each single file is very useful to find out which are the largest files.
10) HD Analyzer by TweakNow is an excellent program to view the space occupied on the hard disk and analyze it graphically. View the space occupied by each folder and hard disk on the PC.
You can group files by type and see, for example, how much space images, videos, music and so on take up.
11) WinDirStat is a very handy tool to view the space occupied by files and folders and analyze their distribution in a graphical tree mode.
12) WizTree is a graphic viewer of the space occupied on the disk (or NTFS partitions) by files and folders on a Windows PC and is perfect for immediately recognizing which ones are the biggest.
13) Other Windows programs and tools to find out the space occupied on the hard disk and search for recent and large files are on another page.
Finally, I remember that for a good maintenance of the hard disk it is very useful to use the defragmentation tools, different and more efficient than the one provided by Windows.
In another article we have seen the best tools for checking performance and performance of a hard disk.
