As our hard drive free space becomes lesser and lesser, we tend to wonder what uses them so much (even though sometimes we do forgot about that 50GB complete series TV shows that we’ve downloaded over the past months). One way is to check your folder sizes one by one (which might take ages and potential RSI due to repetitive clicking).

Even then, you’ll probably see boring statistics like this:

Linux have a built-in tool to measure disk usage - categorized by directory, file types, etc called Disk Usage Analyzer that looks something like this:

Windows users, don’t cry (or start re-formatting *cough*) - there is a solution, similar solution to the neat tool shown above. It is called “WinDirStat“.

This free ware will report to you which file is taking up most of the space on your system (color coded based on location). After a short analysis, it will present a graphical data as follows:

If you look at the image above, there is one huge red block. Hovering my mouse cursor over this block reveals that the file is called “pagefile.sys“. This is the largest file on my freshly installed Vista system (which is none other than the Page File!). Unfortunately though, we can’t really delete this file :(

More info and download at WinDirStat’s Official Website

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