SpaceObServer 4.3.2

Founded back in 1997 by Joachim Marder in Trier, Jam Software is a company that specializes in developing and selling software applications. To be more precise, Jam Software specializes in the “development of software solutions for common problems that companies, private customers and software developers are facing.” On request, Jam Software can come up with desktop, server or web based software solutions that meet the customer’s needs.

One software application this company has come up with is SpaceObServer. At first glance, you would think this application has something to do with space (as in outer space) and a means of observing it. You would be wrong in thinking so. The space in SpaceObServer refers to the space on your disk.

SpaceObServer is in fact an easy to use hard disk space manager for Windows. Using a background service, the application scans all your local drives as well as your network drives. It does this so that it can store their structure, sizes and properties in an SQL database. All the data collected by SpaceObServer is served to you in an interface that resembles Windows Explorer. You can view said data as a 3D bar, a pie chart, line chart, or tree map.

Is collecting all this info useful for anything? It is useful if you want to keep track of disk space usage over time. By knowing how space is used, you can forecast future space usage.

SpaceObServer comes with a feature that allows you to locate duplicate files. It also comes with a flexibile file search tool that helps you find very big, old or obsolete files.

The SpaceObServer download weighs in at about 9MB. On a high-speed internet connection, the download will complete in no time at all. Once downloaded, you can install the application on pretty much all versions of the Microsoft-developed Windows operating system – this includes Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit versions). The downside is that you can use SpaceObServer free of charge only during the 30-day trial period.

Pros

• Displays folder size in the file system tree
• Regularly scans drives and stores collected data in an SQL database
• View data as a 3D bar, a pie chart, line chart, or tree map
• Export data to Excel
• Up-to-date info about local NTFS drives
• Space usage history
• Duplicate file finder

Cons

• Free to use only during the 30-day trial period

SpaceObServer has been reviewed by George Norman on 14 Apr 2010. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated SpaceObServer 4 out of 5 stars, naming it Excellent