Wednesday, March 12, 2008

WinDirStat

WinDirStat <http://windirstat.info/> is handy tool. It is very similar to TreeSize. Both tools provide reports of disk usage on a given volume. However, WinDirStat has a better graphical interface, appears to be complete its reporting task in less time, and has entertaining animations when performing its work (you'll have to try it to see - think Pac-Man).

Below is a screen shot of a completed scan of a volume. You can click on the various graphical chunks which will update the other two window panes accordingly. It is fun, free and useful to track storage usage of volume.




I discovered WinDirStat while reading the following NetApp blog about Vista's large installation base, <http://blogs.netapp.com/incorrigible_techno/2007/12/28-gb.html>.

March 13, 2008 additions:

  1. Thanks to Jim (see comments) for pointing out the Mac OS X equivlant - Disk Inventory X http://www.derlien.com/
  2. There is KDirStat for "Linux, BSD, and lots of other Unix-type systems (Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, ...)" http://kdirstat.sourceforge.net/
  3. KDirStat was the original, WinDirStat is a "clone", and then came Disk Inventory X (sources are from the previous two links).

2 comments:

  1. There is a similar program for Mac OS X called Disk Inventory X, you can find it at http://www.derlien.com/

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  2. Thanks for covering the Mac OS X side. From the screen shots, "Disk Inventory X" provides very similar output to WinDirStat. The web site of Disk Inventory X it's typed, "The idea to develop this program came to me when a fellow of mine showed me his creation WinDirStat." That explains it.

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