Where'd all my harddrive space go and how can I find out?
July 11, 2010 6:21 PM Subscribe
Is there a way to get a list of the largest folders on my harddrive?
I have a 120gb hard drive. There's only 8gb left and I have no idea where the other 112gb wandered off to.
I know small things tend to add up, so I tried to do an accounting of my biggest offenders- Steam, MP3s, the 'Downloads' folder. All told it came to about 60gb.
I ran DiskClean up and got back around 10gb that way. But where's the rest? I feel like something has to be gobbling up that other 50gb and I have no idea where to look other than to get a list of my biggest folders. What's the easiest/best way to do this? I'm also willing to consider other methods of accounting for the missing space.
I have a 120gb hard drive. There's only 8gb left and I have no idea where the other 112gb wandered off to.
I know small things tend to add up, so I tried to do an accounting of my biggest offenders- Steam, MP3s, the 'Downloads' folder. All told it came to about 60gb.
I ran DiskClean up and got back around 10gb that way. But where's the rest? I feel like something has to be gobbling up that other 50gb and I have no idea where to look other than to get a list of my biggest folders. What's the easiest/best way to do this? I'm also willing to consider other methods of accounting for the missing space.
I can't remember which program I used to use for this off the top of my head, but the search term you want is disk visualization program or disk usage visualization program.
posted by limeonaire at 6:28 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by limeonaire at 6:28 PM on July 11, 2010
Best answer: Here's a list of Windows alternatives.
posted by sourwookie at 6:28 PM on July 11, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by sourwookie at 6:28 PM on July 11, 2010 [3 favorites]
One of the tags is "Vista", although I have to admit I almost forgot to check.
OP: If you can't find another way, a simple method which would only take a minute is to go into windows explore and right-click the folders in your root directory and check the properties. That will tell you how big the folder is recursively. As in how big that folder AND every subfolder put together is. So you can use a pretty easy process of elimination to figure out where the data is by finding the biggest folders in root, opening those and finding the biggest folders inside them, and so on down the line.
It sounds like a lot of work but it would actually only take 2 minutes or so.
posted by Justinian at 6:31 PM on July 11, 2010
OP: If you can't find another way, a simple method which would only take a minute is to go into windows explore and right-click the folders in your root directory and check the properties. That will tell you how big the folder is recursively. As in how big that folder AND every subfolder put together is. So you can use a pretty easy process of elimination to figure out where the data is by finding the biggest folders in root, opening those and finding the biggest folders inside them, and so on down the line.
It sounds like a lot of work but it would actually only take 2 minutes or so.
posted by Justinian at 6:31 PM on July 11, 2010
Best answer: As pointed to by sourwookie, WinDirStat is great.
posted by gregglind at 6:31 PM on July 11, 2010 [6 favorites]
posted by gregglind at 6:31 PM on July 11, 2010 [6 favorites]
Oops, sorry. Didn't catch the tag.
posted by sourwookie at 6:32 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by sourwookie at 6:32 PM on July 11, 2010
Another vote for WinDirStat. It's one of my 'must-install' utilities exactly for this reason.
posted by wrok at 6:39 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by wrok at 6:39 PM on July 11, 2010
Seconding WinDirStat.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:40 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by ob1quixote at 6:40 PM on July 11, 2010
Best answer: I've always found SpaceMonger 1.4 perfectly adequate for this job.
posted by flabdablet at 6:42 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by flabdablet at 6:42 PM on July 11, 2010
Best answer: A simple, no-install-required utility I've used in the past on Windows is "Scanner."
On Linux, Gnome comes with something similar built in these days.
posted by musicinmybrain at 6:46 PM on July 11, 2010
On Linux, Gnome comes with something similar built in these days.
posted by musicinmybrain at 6:46 PM on July 11, 2010
Response by poster: Windirstat looks like exactly what I need. I'll run it when I get home and see if it does the trick.
posted by GilloD at 6:51 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by GilloD at 6:51 PM on July 11, 2010
Having just now downloaded and played with WinDirStat, I now intend to use both. WinDirStat is more informative, but I prefer SpaceMonger's approach to the treemap.
posted by flabdablet at 6:55 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by flabdablet at 6:55 PM on July 11, 2010
Best answer: There's one even better if you only want only to see the sizes of files from largest to smallest. It's called "Primitive File Size" and, in lightning speed, it lists all your files on any drive from top to bottom. I first learned of it from Lifehacker.
Also, make sure that "show all system and hidden files" is ticked and you are able to see all of your files. Many times a C: drive will get gobbled up by hiberfil.sys (hibernation files) and people don't realize it until you're able to actually see the file and the size, which is usually very large. If you don't use hibernation (not the same as stand-by) you can turn it off and delete the large hiberfil.sys file.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 7:05 PM on July 11, 2010
Also, make sure that "show all system and hidden files" is ticked and you are able to see all of your files. Many times a C: drive will get gobbled up by hiberfil.sys (hibernation files) and people don't realize it until you're able to actually see the file and the size, which is usually very large. If you don't use hibernation (not the same as stand-by) you can turn it off and delete the large hiberfil.sys file.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 7:05 PM on July 11, 2010
Response by poster: Weird that mention hibernation files- Mine was a solid 4gb when I ran Disc Cleanup.
I am so excited to go home and get a look at my HD. /nerd
posted by GilloD at 7:24 PM on July 11, 2010
I am so excited to go home and get a look at my HD. /nerd
posted by GilloD at 7:24 PM on July 11, 2010
The size of your hibernation file is tied to the amount of RAM you have installed, and regular deletion doesn't make them smaller.
posted by flabdablet at 7:28 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by flabdablet at 7:28 PM on July 11, 2010
Best answer: A utility that makes it very easy to do what you're trying to do is Sequoiaview - it draws a hierarchical picture, with each file represented by a rectangle based on the size of the file, and colour-coded by file type...you can therefore easily see "Aaah there's that movie I forgot to delete, and there's a folder full of several thousand holiday photos I can get rid of!"
posted by Jimbob at 7:39 PM on July 11, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Jimbob at 7:39 PM on July 11, 2010 [1 favorite]
Hmm, I see Sequoiaview is very similar to Spacemonger that flabdablet posted, just a little prettier.
posted by Jimbob at 7:44 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by Jimbob at 7:44 PM on July 11, 2010
The size of your hibernation file is tied to the amount of RAM you have installed, and regular deletion doesn't make them smaller.
That's why I suggested if he's not using hibernation to turn it off. It can easily be disabled with a tick.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 7:55 PM on July 11, 2010
That's why I suggested if he's not using hibernation to turn it off. It can easily be disabled with a tick.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 7:55 PM on July 11, 2010
Best answer: Another free, open-source Mac suggestion: GrandPerspective.
posted by good in a vacuum at 8:28 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by good in a vacuum at 8:28 PM on July 11, 2010
My favourite tool for this is OverDisk (Windows only). It's similar to the above-mentioned Scanner, but just a little bit better.
posted by seikleja at 11:25 PM on July 11, 2010
posted by seikleja at 11:25 PM on July 11, 2010
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posted by sourwookie at 6:27 PM on July 11, 2010 [2 favorites]