My original Windows 7 computer came with a Western Digital hard disk of 160 GB capacity. But in a year or so, I ran out of storage space and had to buy another Western Digital hard disk of 750GB capacity. Now I am almost running out of space on this one as well. It made me wonder where all this hard disk space is going. If you also want to know which files or folder are using the most of your hard disk space, then you can use the free JDsikReport software. It is a hard disk analysis tool that can show you the hard disk space consumption details by different files and folders in a colorful pie chart format.
You can get the JDiskReport from the JGoodies website. The software is developed using the Oracle Java technology so you would need to install Java Runtime Environment (JRE) on your computer before you can run JDiskReport.
As you launch JDiskReport, it asks for selecting a folder tree that you want to analyze. You can also open a scan file that you might have saved previously. Typically, you would select a disk drive like C:, but you can also select a folder like “C:\Program Files”.
As you select a folder or disk drive, it starts analyzing the hard disk space consumed by it. In a small duration of time, it will display the pie chart for the disk space consumption by all the sub-folders and files.
You can view the data in pie chart form, bar chart form, ring chart form and details form. In order to view the files in the data, you have to select the checkbox labeled Show files in the JDiskReport window.
The pie chart as well as other types of charts are clickable – you can click on the rings and pie slices to open the smaller pie charts for sub-folders. The same effect is achieved when you click on the sub-folders in the left side tree view.
In addition to viewing the hard disk consumption based on the size of folders and files, you can also view the analyzed data as a distribution of file types, file modified dates and file size distribution.
If you want to save the scanned folder data, JDiskReport allows you to save the the scan in form of a file. This file can later be opened in JDiskReport so that you can compare the hard disk space consumption from an earlier time.
Conclusion: JDiskReport is a free tool for analysis of your hard disk space consumption. It can show you the hard disk space consumption details by different files and folders in a colorful pie chart, ring chart or bar chart format.
You can download JDiskReport from http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/.