HD Analyze Reveals Hard Drive Space Distribution and Disk Information

HD Analyzer on first glance looks like another program that analyzes a hard drive’s space distribution. Programs like Disk Detective, Overdisk or JDiskReport scan a selected folder or partition, and visualize the results afterwards using various types of charts and other visualizations.

When you start HD Analyzer, you will immediately notice that it has more to offer than that. While it lists the connected hard drives in the interface, it also lists detailed information about the selected hard drive on the right.

The program lists general information like the file system, serial number and free space at the top, and below that a detailed listing of the file system features. Here you see if specific features like compression or hard links are supported, and active on the system. The information change when you click on another connected drive.

A click on Options displays the file type listing that are recognized by the program during the scan process. You can add or remove file extensions as you see fit. It may be a good idea to look at the file listing first, before you start the scan to make sure that all relevant extensions are covered by the application.

This is not important for the general space distribution that is displayed either way in the program window, but the file type listing in the lower half of the screen that is listing file extension groups like documents, images or audio files and their space distribution.

You can click on a folder or file group to display a list of subfolders and files sorted by size.  It is furthermore possible to display the selected folder directly in Windows Explorer with a click on the button.

Closing Words

The program did not work on two Windows 64-bit systems, where it failed to scan the drives and froze completely after a while. The file system information and general information may be useful to some users. If you are looking for a program to visualize the space distribution by file groups, then HD Analyzer may be worth a closer look. If you just want a quick rundown on the space distribution, you may be better off with faster programs, especially if you are working with 64-bit systems.via[ghacks]