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Quick, bullet-points review.
Winner: Space Sniffer.
Goals
- Informative visualization of space used by directories and files
- Full file delete support
- Good User Interface
- Fast Scanning
Visualization Types
- Hierarchical Cake Diagram
- Cake Diagram
- (Hierarchical) Treemap
- Absolute Bar Chart
- Relative Bar Chart
WinDirStat (3/5)
+++ Both relative bar charts and a treemap
+ File type based statistics
- Sometimes unresponsive while scanning
- Quite ugly
- Visualization sometimes very slow
-- Does not monitor disk for changes
-- I find it hard to use the treemap for anything but finding single, large files
-- Sometimes reports wrong sizes (happened to me in Divx player cache directory, anybody got an explanation?)
-- Can only delete single files / directories
--- Slow! (~ 4 minutes for my C drive)
Mind Gems Folder Size (2/5)
++ Useful, good-looking and informative non-hierarchical cake chart + relative/absolute bar charts
- Ads in toolbar (for developers software)
- Delete function disabled while scanning, should be possible if current directory is completely scanned
-- Does not monitor changes on disk
-- No hierarchical visualization (treemap / hierarchical cake) at all.
-- Sometimes deleted items do not disappear properly (only after F5)
--- Slow! (~ 5 minutes for my C drive)
SpaceSniffer (4/5)
+++ Treemap-Visualization with adjustable detail, navigation, labels (what WinDirStat wanted to do)
+++ FAST Scanning
++ Gives you full explorer context menu
+ Powerful filtering (not very comfortable to use)
+ Tagging
+ Active Development
~ Donation Button, non-obstrusive
~ No installation
- URL in Window Title (ugly!)
-- No simple bar chart visualization possible.
-- Can only delete single files / directories
-- No "open explorer here" if not included in explorer context menu
Tip: Disable distracting Mouse Trail
Tip: Disable Console Popup
Tip: Enable File Type highlighting
TreeSize (4/5)
++ Simple!
++ Quite fast scanning
+ Simple filtering
+ Can also display File Count etc.
+ Explorer Bar Chart visualization well executed
~ Software Ads, non-obstrusive
- Can only delete single files / directories
-- No other visualization options
SpaceMonger (2/5)
++ Favorites
++ Statistics
+ Multiple File selection
+ Fast!
- Ugly
-- Awkward
--- 30 Day trail :(
jDiskReport - No delete function => no rating
++ Savable scans
++ Statistics (Type, Size, Date)
+ Also visualizes file count per folder
- Java Interface (ugly!)
-- Slow!
--- No delete function at all
OverDisk - No delete function => no rating
+++ Beautiful, exact display of folder size structures using hierarchical
-- Does not monitor hard disc
-- Hard to get a quick overview since diagram does not contain labels (only mouse-over)
--- No delete function built-in
Best Speed: Space Sniffer
Best Non-Hierarchical Visualization: Folder Size
Best Hierarchical Visualization: Space Sniffer
Best User Interface: Space Sniffer
Best Delete Behavior: Space Monger
Others:
Folder Size (by Brio) - Only works for 2000 & XP
Sequoia View - Original Treemap implementation, very basic
Xinorbis - Failed to start
Disk Space Fan - Huge interface delays
Also many advanced filemanagers support basic display of folder sizes or even visualization, like FAR, FreeCommander, TotalCommander.
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