14 DAY TRIAL // Hard disk capacity becomes larger and larger and the Internet is getting better and better so the amount of data on the disks is taking a lot of space. I have almost 1TB on my computer and I'm thinking of buying larger disks. But before rushing into throwing the money on space, I will definitely clean the drives of all the unnecessary data. Only after this operation will I decide if, indeed, I need larger disks or not.
The space I am going to magically produce is currently occupied by duplicates, temporaries and junk files.
585Soft has one solution for exactly the task I am trying to enroll to. Need3Space is an application that costs $35 and has a 30 days trial period. It is designed to free up your hard drives and create the space you are longing for. It will clean up the computer of duplicate files, temporary and junk files, empty files and folders as well as infrequently used files.
The interface is nice and simple and the intuitive buttons make it very easy to handle. The options are displayed vertically on the left hand of the application window while the contents are shown in a different window, to the right.
The Analyze option available will scan the selected drive or folder and display the files that take the most space. The size of the folders is displayed in percentages so that you realize exactly how much space it occupies from the entire selected partition.
Need3Space is equipped with an uninstaller that enables the user to get rid of the unwanted problems. The advantage of this feature, as opposed to the regular Add/Remove programs in Windows, is that it allows the user to delete the registry values. Of course, it would have been nicer if the values were automatically deleted with the uninstall of the respective program.
Temporary and Cache option contains two sections: one for the Internet Explorer temporaries (cache, cookies, history) and one for the Windows temporary files (recent documents list, system temporaries, recycle bin, log files and prefetch files).
Disk Info section is at a first sight just informative, showing you the details about the partitions available on your hard disk (file system, total space and free space). But if you right click on one of the disks the context menu will allow you to run a defragmentation.
The downfall for this is that the software uses Windows' defragmenting tool (which cannot run the job on more than one drive at a time) and does not automatically start it. So, if you want to get rid of fragmentation you will have to start the job by yourself. Some other options in here are viewing the properties of the volume or open it in Windows Explorer.
The Options menu allows the user to configure the Need3Space so that it suits his/her needs. Thus, you can make settings for file operations, change the background priority, choose the object size (from compact to Windows Explorer format) and specify the exclusion areas. Exclusion areas can be added by means of wildcards.
Options also addresses the duplicate files settings, as well as the temporary, junk and infrequently used files. Thus, files with certain attributes can be excluded from the search and, by means of wildcards, you can add extensions for temporaries and junk files. The infrequently accessed files can also be configured and you are allowed to define for the application what are the infrequently used: define the number of days for the Not Accessed/Modified or Created files.
I must tell you that the duplicate search may include files that are not true duplicates. At all my scans for dupes the results were erroneous and clearly different files were confused with duplicates. The application does not scan the content of the files but only the size. Not even the name of the files (which was clearly different) was taken into consideration during the scan.
The Good
The application is easy to use and will provide fast results no matter the task you are giving it. The Quick Help feature will tell you what the function you are hovering the mouse over is for. This way, the user will no longer be confused.
The Bad
The duplicate search is not really great, as the scan is superficial enough not to thoroughly check the files. The content of the files is not verified and neither is the filename. This will translate into inaccurate results, which can be interpreted as accurate by inexperienced users or by those who don't pay enough attention.
Considering what it can offer, the price is a bit high. It does not have a built in defragmentation tool and it will not automatically start the Windows defragmentation utility.
The Truth
Need3Space is worth a try just to see what you want from a disk manager. I recommend extreme caution when deleting the duplicates or, better yet, do not delete any duplicate before you check the files yourself.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
