DiskScout - FAQ
Q: What is DiskScout ?
A: DiskScout is a hard disk space tracking utility
DiskScout will help you to find out which folders are growing over time thus telling you when and where your disk space has disappeared!
Q: Why use DiskScout ?
A: DiskScout will help you in an easy way to track the historical development of your hard
disk usage. See when and where your disk space is going over time
Q: What Windows-Versions are supported?
A: The following operating systems are supported:
Home Edition : Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP, Windows Vista Home-Ultimate
Pro Edition : Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2008 Beta 3
Currently we support 32Bit Windows Systems only.
Q: Is Unicode supported?
A: DiskScout currently has limited support for Unicode. Folder and files will be found and counted, however display of foldernames will not work.
We are working on full unicode support for the next servicepack.
Q: What is the difference between Home/Pro versions of DiskScout ?
A: See our Help information - or visit our homepage at www.discScout.com for up-to-date information
Q: What’s new – release history and product news?
A: visit our homepage at www.discScout.com for up-to-date information
Q: Where can I get support?
A: preferred way to get support is at our support-forum at www.discScout.com to all users may benefit from question and answers.
Alternatively, registered users may send email to support@DiscScout.com for priority support.
Q: What is "Wasted disk space by cluster size" ?
A: 100 bytes of "payload-data" need much more than 100 bytes actually "allocated on disk" ... :
Why:
A so called "cluster" is the smallest unit for disk space allocation, and the size of this cluster is the minimun disk space that will be actually alloced on your hard disk.
Clustersize and resulting "waste" of diskspace is relevant especially for small files.
Example:
Usually NFTS formatted disks have a cluster size of 4096 bytes.
So if you save a file of 1000 bytes to your hard disk then you have the following situation:
Filesize ("payload") :1000 bytes
Size on Disk : 4096 bytes
The difference between Filesize and Size on Disk is called "Wasted disk space"
In the above example 3.096 bytes of your hard disk space are wasted and can not be used by other files.
Storing many small files will result in high waste of disk space: Imagine you have 100.000 files with only 10 bytes each:
Filesize ("payload") : 100.000 x 10 bytes = 1.000.000 bytes (about 1Mb)
Size on Disk : 100.000 x 4096 bytes = 409.600.000 bytes (about 409 Mb)
Wasted disk space : about 408 Mb !
DiskScout will show you how much disk space is wasted on your hard disk!
Q: What is "System Volume information" and why can I not access this folder ?
A: This is a hidden Windows System folder that contains restore information like restore-points.
Usually you will never have any reason to access the System Volume Information and this is why this folder is hidden and access is limited by windows. However, this folder my grow significally over time.
We are working on a way how to scan such folders.
Q: Why is the Summary-information (eg. Size Diff ) not the same as in Scan-Data (Diff-Column)
Example:
In Summary-information the size-diff of -158 MB do not match the information in Scan-data / Diff-column:
A: There are some reasons why this may occur :
1.In Summary-information DiskScout shows free space per disk - not per target.
2.If changes are made to the target at the same time when a scan is active for that target.
3. If changes in hidden folder "System Volume Information" have occured because this folder is not scanned by DiscScout.