Disk utility

A disk utility is a utility program that allows a user to perform various functions on a computer disk, such as disk partitioning and logical volume management, as well as multiple smaller tasks such as changing drive letters and other mount points, renaming volumes, disk checking, and disk formatting, which are otherwise handled separately by multiple other built-in commands. Each operating system (OS) has its own basic disk utility, and there are also separate programs which can recognize and adjust the different s of multiple OSes. Types of disk utilities include disk checkers, disk cleaners and disk space analyzers Disk cleaners are computer programs that find and delete potentially unnecessary or potentially unwanted files from a computer. The purpose of such deletion may be to free up disk space, to eliminate clutter or to protect privacy. Disk space consuming unnecessary files include s, trash, old backups and web caches made by web browsers. Privacy risks include HTTP cookies, local shared objects, log files or any other trace that may tell which computer program opened which files. Disk cleaners must not be mistaken with antivirus software (which delete malware), registry cleaners (which clean Microsoft Windows Registry) or data erasure software (which securely delete files), although multifunction software (such as those included below) may fit into all these categories. Disk compression A disk compression utility increases the amount of information that can be stored on a hard disk drive of given size. Unlike a utility which compresses only specified files – and which requires the user designate the files to be compressed – an on-the-fly disk compression utility works automatically without the user needing to be aware of its existence. When information needs to be stored to the hard disk, the utility will compress the information. When information needs to be read, the utility will decompress the information. A disk compression utility overrides the standard operating system routines.