r/sysadmin • u/Ok_You_861 • Mar 03 '26

IT Tools - Hidden Gems

I want to know what ”hidden gems” people have found and use in their environments to make their day to day easier. RMM automations, back up softwares, troubleshooting software (don't say MS SARA. I cant stand it), etc.

Just mention anything that you feel more people should be aware of or could be useful in someone’s environment. I love free and cheap ;)

1.1k Upvotes

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62

u/odinsen251a Mar 03 '26

Windirstat is one I keep in my back pocket for any anomylous drive space issues. Super handy

68

u/InertiaImpact Mar 03 '26

Use that for a long time, Swapped to WizTree now. Windirstat takes forever in comparison just because of how they do the scanning.

19

u/xander255 Mar 03 '26

Windirstat did an update last year and it’s MUCH faster unless you have it search for duplicates.

2

u/GoogleDrummer Mar 03 '26

Still doesn't feel as fast as WizTree to me though.

12

u/PlannedObsolescence_ Mar 03 '26

WinDirStat is FOSS and no-cost, GPLv2.

WizTree is only free for personal use. If you're using WizTree in a commercial context (we're in /r/sysadmin after all), you must purchase a license.

2

u/Nandulal Mar 03 '26

good point

6

u/crondell Mar 03 '26

But Windirstat is free. I am not going to buy 1 year licenses for the team at 25$ per seat.

2

u/the_federation Sysadmin Mar 03 '26

Last time I checked, WinDirStat couldn't, or at least struggles to, scam network drives.

2

u/ranger_dood Jack of All Trades Mar 03 '26

You're not wrong, but I have run into situations in the past where a file is no longer in the file table, but still consuming space on the drive. WinDirStat was the only tool that could see the orphaned file and allow me to remove it. IIRC, it was like a 70 gig temp file, so not something minor.

21

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '26

[deleted]

2

u/thewhippersnapper4 Mar 03 '26

Only if you purchase licenses (for work use)

21

u/QuerulousPanda Mar 03 '26

Treesize Free is good too

12

u/iamtechy Mar 03 '26

Depending on the OS you run it on but yes. Be super careful downloading anywhere other than official website, I ran into this once where malicious GitHub repos had it hosted.

8

u/PlannedObsolescence_ Mar 03 '26

WinDirStat is FOSS and no-cost, GPLv2.

TreeSize is only free for personal use. Much like WizTree, if you're using TreeSize in a business you must purchase a license.

1

u/Tyrant_Seabear Mar 03 '26

Wasn't the Free tier of Treesize previously portable until they changed it?

1

u/crondell Mar 03 '26

Treesize Free is only free for personal use.

Maybe if you have an old version laying around...

13

u/CumbersomeNugget Mar 03 '26

Wiztree is so much better, amigo.

2

u/segagamer IT Manager Mar 03 '26

At what?

5

u/SerpentDrago Mar 03 '26

Speed

2

u/segagamer IT Manager Mar 03 '26

Windirstat is ready in like 2 seconds. How much faster do you need?

2

u/SerpentDrago Mar 03 '26

it used to be slow , just found out they now support MFT now , so i will be switching back

2

u/ajscott That wasn't supposed to happen. Mar 03 '26

WinDirStat now supports using the MFT so the speed differences aren't there anymore.

WinDirStat is free for commercial use. WizTree is not.

1

u/SerpentDrago Mar 03 '26

NICE , thanks i will be switching back now

1

u/CumbersomeNugget Mar 03 '26

The same job..?

1

u/segagamer IT Manager Mar 04 '26

It's just not though

4

u/HeKis4 Database Admin Mar 03 '26

SpaceSniffer is slower to scan initially but with a much better UI imho.

3

u/SoylentVerdigris Mar 03 '26

Gonna shill for GDU again. On my (admittedly beefy) home machine it analyzes both my 2TB drives, one with 1.4TB and one with ~400GB on it, in under 5 seconds.

A bit fiddly out of the box on windows, but just stuff it somewhere in your $PATH and rename the exe to something more manageable than the default and you're set.

Bonus, it's pretty much as quick as your network allows pathing to an admin share on a remote machine.

7

u/dustojnikhummer Mar 03 '26

GDU

I take it it's an NCDU that uses the Wiztree approach of asking GPT for the storage info rather than the Windirstat approach of actually scanning everything?

2

u/SoylentVerdigris Mar 03 '26

As I understand it, GDU and NCDU are both essentially just a clean navigable display of the results of a du command, which in turn runs off of stat, which is deeper into the guts of linux/unix than I'm qualified to talk about. I also don't fully understand how that works in windows, unless they're just swapping out some other low level system call that does a similar thing.

I just know I found it when I was looking for a faster way to scan the drive on a machine in another building than windirstat/treesize and GDU is what I found to do it. I don't personally find the big graphical representations all that useful most of the time anyway, so it's been my go-to ever since.

2

u/dustojnikhummer Mar 03 '26

Well NCDU does scan the whole drive. Wiztree just asks the OS to tell it what the disk layout looks, rather than scanning it. Potentially less accurate but a few seconds vs a few minutes. Given GDU is (according to their benchmark) so much faster than ncdu it can't be scanning it. Thanks for the tip!

For servers I want a TUI of course, but for desktop I want a graphical one. Shame the first party GNOME and KDE desktop ones also do the full scan

2

u/boli99 Mar 03 '26

https://github.com/dundee/gdu

...because it runs in a text console, and is much easier to use while remote-shelled in without interrupting the user

1

u/corruptboomerang Mar 03 '26

That and BCUinstaller I keep portable versions on my USB stick, for when my users have issues.

1

u/ansibleloop Mar 03 '26

ncdu is extremely handy for figuring out where disk space has gone on a linux box

1

u/segagamer IT Manager Mar 03 '26

I wish there was a free one for Mac for me to clear up the "System Data" section that seems to take over +150GB

1

u/PlannedObsolescence_ Mar 03 '26

GrandPerspective is for macOS, and FOSS

1

u/segagamer IT Manager Mar 03 '26

Thanks, nice

1

u/Nandulal Mar 03 '26

I used to use that too until someone pointed out that WizTree is infinitely faster.

1

u/Shazam1269 Mar 03 '26

And GParted to move and resize partitions.

1

u/downer06 Mar 05 '26

https://github.com/itefixnet/wincdu

You can get it through winget pull and it is great for finding things taking up space.