SpaceSniffer is a freeWare (donations are welcome) and portable tool application that lets you understand how folders and files are structured on your disks. By using a Treemap visualization layout, you have immediate perception of where big folders and files are placed on your devices. Treemap concept was invented by Prof. Ben Shneiderman, who kindly permitted the use of his concept into this tool.

Start a scan process and see the overall situation. Bigger are the elements on the view, bigger are folders and files on your disk. You need more detail on a big folder? Just single click on it. The selected element will be detailed with its content.

Need more and more detail? Keep selecting elements and they’ll discover their secrets to you. Need a larger view of a small folder? Then double click on it, and it’ll zoom to the full extent of the view.

If you need to understand why no more free space is left on media, keep following bigger elements. Maybe you want to focus only on particular file types… ok. Just type the file type on the filter field (example: *.jpg) and press enter. The view will react and show you only JPEG files.

Want to exclude files? Then type a starting pipe before the filter (example: |*.jpg) and press enter. The view will show everything but JPEG files.

via SpaceSniffer, find lost disk space the easy way..

PassMark DiskCheckup™ allows the user to monitor the SMART attributes of a particular hard disk drive. SMART Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology is a feature on a computer’s hard disk for providing various monitoring indicators of disk reliability. If SMART is enabled on a hard disk, the system administrator can receive analytical information from the hard drive to determine a possible future failure of the hard drive.SMART monitors elements of possible long term drive failure, such as ‘Spin Up Time’, the number of start/stops, the number of hours powered on and the hard disk temperature.DiskCheckup displays the current values of the SMART attributes, along with the Threshold value for that attribute. If an attribute drops below its threshold, the drive cannot guarantee that it will be able to meet its specifications in the future.Note that SMART attributes change slowly over time and are helpful attempts to diagnose the life span of a particular drive. DiskCheckup monitors these changes over a long period and predict the date if available of the Threshold Exceed Condition TEC, which is displayed on the main window.DiskCheckup can also execute built-in Disk Self Test DST routines implemented by the vendor to detect drive failures. There are two main self test routines: Short Test and Extended Test. The results of these tests are displayed in DiskCheckup.DiskCheckup also displays device information, such as the drive geometry, serial number, model number, media rotation rate, and supported features.

via PassMark DiskCheckup – SMART hard drive monitoring utility.