PC Magazine, Bruce Brown

Visualize Your Disk Drive
"Most new computers come with [large] hard disks. So why do we run out of disk space so soon after purchasing these new systems? Micro Logic Corp.'s DiskMapper is an essential tool that provides an answer in the form of a graphical map showing what's stored where and what's hogging all that disk space.

DiskMapper displays a disk's contents as a series of color-coded boxes. Each box represents a directory, subdirectory, or file.

The program is visual and extremely intuitive because the relationship of each rectangle to the entire map is proportional to the amount of hard disk space used by that object. Unlike Explorer, File Manager, or other list-based representations of a disk's contents, DiskMapper's results are readily apparent at a glance. Because the DiskMapper rectangles are nested, a top-level directory's size is the same regardless of whether its contents reach one level down or several levels. This is useful for uncovering that 30MB database stored five levels below the root.

DiskMapper can map any physical or logical drive, including those on a network server. Performance is quite reasonable. Mapping a  drive with nearly 10,000 files took only about 20 seconds, although it took over 4 minutes to map a volume with more than 27,000 files.

By default, the program color-codes directories and files based on their levels in the directory tree. But you can also elect to color the boxes based on a file's or directory's age, extension, archive bit, or protection status (read-only or hidden, for example), or on whether it has been changed since its creation. There are 23 supplied color schemes, and you can make your own.

DiskMapper can also zip, unzip, launch, and delete files. A full installation of DiskMapper uses about 500K of disk space, but the program gives you the opportunity to save at least that much space by finding old or unused files.

DiskMapper is an indespensable utility for keeping track of what's really on your hard disk drive and where it's hiding."

M. Aaron, product user

"Where have you been all my life? I've been searching for some time for a program that would allow me to get an overview of where in the world all my hard disk space is going. The one thing that's missing from any of the good file managers is a good way to find the places to quickly delete files to free up hard disk space."

Windows Magazine, John Woram

7 Utilities You Can't Live Without
"DiskMapper takes the GUI concept a step beyond Explorer with a set of six maps to guide you over Windows hilly terrain."

The Washington Post, Paul Gilster

"It didn't take long to convince me that DiskMapper offers a superior solution. When I ran the program, I doubted seriously that I would find any vacant space. But right there in the middle of my D: drive was an enormous set of e-mail messages taking up 4 Mb of space. These were files I no longer needed and had completely forgotten I had.

Chris Garvey, product user

I very quickly cleaned off 10 mb. There's no question about it - it's useful."

Computer Columnist Bob Schwabach, Universal Press

"Ever wondered just what is occupying all that space on your hard disk? And where it is? Of course you have. DiskMapper for the PC produces a schematic representation of your hard drive. What is that huge area that looks like the Arabian Desert? Could it be the Windows help files? By jove, it is! And so it goes. This is more than a curiosity."

Ashraf Azmi, product user

"I found DiskMapper to be a useful and easy to use tool. This is the first time I really understood my disk space usage. Good Idea."

Australian Financial Review, Charles Wright

Somehow, File Manager or Windows Explorer doesn't convey an adequate picture of the chaos. To get a comprehensive view of the full catastrophe, one has to load up DiskMapper. DiskMapper allows you to visualize all those bytes arrayed not in directory trees and meaningless numbers, but in color-coded diagrams that allow you to see just what's been going on in there while you were slaving away. Would you believe, for instance, that all those e-mail messages in Eudora Pro's in box were taking up 42MB of space? Worse, that the Eudora trash file was now taking up an entire 19MB of wasted space? DiskMapper immediately alerts you to the biggest thieves of that precious space, by displaying the contents of your hard disk in a series of nested rectangles. Hover, for instance, might be a fabulous game, but it's taking up 16.6MB of space."

Kevin Cole, product user

"Thanks for another wildly great product. Keep up the good work."

NY Newsday, Lou Dolinar

"...A fast and simple way to run through today's two-gigabyte drives and figure out just what it is you want to compress or delete. ...I would have killed for a utility like this."

Anthony Eshun, product user

"I love it"

Philadelphia Inquirer, John J. Fried

DiskMapper can peer deep into the hard drive to find old files
"Even though I routinely cleanse my drive of no-longer-needed programs, DiskMapper turned up a bunch I had forgotten, allowing me to clear more than 60 megabytes of space on the drive.

Running DiskMapper is fairly straightforward. When you open the program, its initial screen presents you with a collage of rectangular boxes, each one representing directories, sub-directories or files on your drive. The boxes are proportionately sized, depending on the size of the directory or file for which they stand.

Big boxes carry the names of the programs or files they represent. When you move your cursor over the smaller boxes, a window containing the name of the corresponding contents pops up.

Big box or little, you also get an immediate reading of the number of bytes the directory or file uses up. With DiskMapper, though you can delve even deeper.

Large boxes denoting big directories contain smaller boxes that represent sub- and sub-sub-directories. Click on the parent box and you go the next level of exploration to get a detailed view of the program's components. You can dip down seven levels, should the need arise.

DiskMapper also allows you to choose criteria besides the size to see what is going on within the drive. You can have the program look for programs that have not been used for awhile, for no-longer-useful backup files, for files that never have been used after they have been created, and more.

Once you have spotted programs and files, you can do one of two things: You can compress them, just in case you may want them someday, or you can delete them."

ComputerEdge

"I've always been firmly convinced that little monsters ate up my hard drive space while I was asleep. For once, though, I actually enjoyed being proved wrong.

One of the biggest faults with File Manager and Windows Explorer is that they don't display directory sizes. You can go to Properties for a directory in Explorer and find out, but this is a hassle.

Enter DiskMapper from Micro Logic. This product does more than just give you directory sizes, however. It displays them in an innovative format that gives each directory a rectangle based on how large it is. The screen, filled with little rectangles, gives you a map of your hard drive, with details for each directory displayed at the bottom of the screen. Inside each directory, it shows you which files and subdirectories take up the most space using the same rectangle system, combining the smaller files to show their total size. Zooming in on a directory fills the screen with just that map, showing you greater detail, and Delete and Zip buttons are just a click away to help clear unwanted files.

The program is really very useful, with the graphics able to convey information much better than a listing. Technically the product performs quite well.

I even found where my disk space went. My mom's wordiest files took up about 50Mb, and so did Microsoft Office and Netscape Navigator (with all its add-ons). The other 400MB were split between smaller directories." [Recommended Purchase].

PC Upgrade

Utility Of The Month
Manage Your Hard Disk Storage With Micro Logic's DiskMapper

"Standard file managers do a great job of copying, moving and otherwise handling files on your computer, but they're not too good at telling you which files are taking up most of the space on your hard drive. To be sure, you can get a listing of files and their respective sizes, but even from that, it's hard to get an idea of how the file size compares to the space available on the disk. In addition, few if any file managers will show you how much disk space a particular directory is taking.

With the introduction of Micro Logic's DiskMapper, all of that has changed. Using a series of proportionately-sized, nested rectangles, DiskMapper lets you see immediately which programs, data files, and subdirectories are hogging your hard disk's storage capacity.

DiskMapper comes on a single diskette and is very easy to install. The promotional literature that describes DiskMapper says that, "The very first time you run DiskMapper, it will feel like a light has been turned on inside your hard disk drive, illuminating a previously hidden world of information." This is not mere advertising hype. It is absolutely true. When you run it the first time, it immediately gives you an overview of your entire hard disk drive. We were amazed to find, for example, that on a newly installed computer, that we had already used up one-third of the hard disk's capacity. We also quickly discovered that one third of all the space we were using was taken by [one program suite]. Talk about memory hogs, that's got to be a serious contender for first place.

Once you start to use DiskMapper, you'll be amazed and astounded by just how much disk space is required by some applications. One quarter of that is taken up by graphics files, so you know that you can immediately recover 62Mb of hard disk space by eliminating them altogether. Alternatively, you could decide to compress the entire Graphics directory and save 22Mb of space.

The user interface on DiskMapper is excellent. For example, to compress an entire directory of files, just click on the rectangle that represents the directory and then click on the Zip button. UnZipping files is just as easy. Also, if you want to move from one directory to the next subdirectory, all you have to do is just click on the appropriate rectangle. As you move your mouse cursor across the map of the disk drive, the program displays the full file path, size date, and extension type on the status bar and, at your option, right next to the mouse cursor itself.

In addition to being able to easily compress files, you can also delete them or launch them with equal ease. To launch a file, you just double click on it. To delete a file or directory, highlight it by clicking on its rectangle once and then click on the Delete button. Pay attention to the warning messages that DiskMapper displays: you don't want to accidentally delete any critical files.

The really nice thing about DiskMapper, is that unlike other "tree"-based programs that produce long listings that scroll off the screen, all of the information about your hard drive is displayed at once on a single screen. When you run DiskMapper, you will see several nested rectangles on the screen. They represent files and subdirectories. Some of these rectangles have text in them, others don't. The text shows the actual name of the file or directory. By decreasing the size of the type you use to display these names, more rectangles will appear with text inside them.

A really handy feature of DiskMapper is its color-coding scheme. It assigns different colors to rectangles depending on how deep down they are. For example, the first time you run the program, all items will be colored according to their respective directory level. That is, the root directory, which is level 1, has one color. The main directories, which are immediately below the root, are in level 2 and assigned a different color. Subdirectories of these main directories are level three and have yet another color. And so it goes. The program comes with a preselected set of colors, but you are free to change them to suit your own personal preferences.

Another handy feature built into this program is an Age monitor. When you are in the process of clearing or compressing files on your hard drive, it can be very helpful to know if those files have not been used for a long time. That's where the Age monitor comes in. You can tell DiskMapper to display a map of your hard drive by showing a different color for each age range. You can also choose how many days you want between age ranges and you can choose between different types of dates you want to use such as the creation date, the date the file was last modified or the date the file was last accessed. In addition, if you're using the 32-bit Windows 95 version of DiskMapper, you can also assign one color to files that have been used since their creation and another color to files that have never been used since their creation. These later files are good candidates for deletion.

In addition to displaying files by age, the program can also map your hard drive by file extension. For example, you can assign one color to all files that have the .BAK extension and another color to files that have the .TXT extension, or .PM6 extension, etc.

When mapping the size of files, DiskMapper can use the actual file size or the physical file size. The physical file size is more appropriate because it represents how much space is actually being used. For example, in a system that has a cluster size of 32,000 bytes, if you save a file that consists of a single character, you're actually using up 32,000 bytes of disk space. It's wasteful, but at least you get a true picture. If you used the actual file size, it would just show that a one-byte file was created. That's not very useful.

All-in-all, our experience with DiskMapper has been an eye-opening one and we highly recommend this utility to anyone who wants to know what's going on inside his or her hard disk."