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Here are the top 5 Windows (11) disk utilities for free download in 2024, including both free and paid versions: 1. CCleaner - Free: CCleaner is a popular system optimization and cleaning tool that helps you remove unnecessary files from your hard drive, enhancing your computer's performance. It also manages startup items, cleans registry errors, and removes privacy traces. 2. CrystalDiskInfo - Free: This is a powerful hard drive health monitoring software that provides crucial information about your disk's temperature, SMART data, and more, allowing you to predict potential issues with your drive. 3. tools Partition Master - Free and Paid: Offering an extensive range of disk management and partition adjustment features, such as creating, deleting, formatting partitions, and resizing them, tools Partition Master caters to both basic needs with its free version and advanced requirements with its paid version. 4. Defraggler - Free: Developed by the same company as CCleaner, Defraggler is a defragmentation tool that lets you defrag specific files or folders, improving file access speed. 5. MiniTool Partition Wizard - Free and Paid: This powerful partition management software offers similar functions to tools Partition Master, including partition creation, resizing, merging, and cloning. The free version is suitable for personal use, while the paid version is geared towards business environments. Choose the appropriate tool based on your specific requirements and ensure that you download any software from official sources to guarantee safety.

On this page, you'll find the 5 best free and paid disk tools for Windows to manage hard drive partitions and optimize disk performance in Windows 11/10/8/7. Follow along and download a reliable Windows disk utility now to easily manage your internal or external hard drives.

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Linda 

Written by

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Last updated on April 22, 2024

When it comes to managing hard drive or partitioning external hard drive, you can't get it done alone. Usually, you may need the help of professional computer partition management tools or software. On this page, you will find 5 best Windows disk utilities that allow you to manage your hard drive by yourself and even optimize the hard drive performance. Let's check them out.

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5 Best Disk Tools for Windows 11/10/8/7 - Free and Paid

Instead of using various disk management or disk optimization software, we've picked out the 5 best Windows disk utilities for you to choose from and manage your HDD/SSD drives on your own:

#1. Partition Master Tool
#2. Windows Disk Management
#3. Windows DiskPart Utility
#4. Windows Genius Utility
#5. Disk Defragmenter

Your quick guide is right here:

For the simplest Windows disk management software, Partition Master should be your go-to choice.
If you need a free disk tool, you can utilize the Disk Management feature on your Windows computer.
If you're looking for a free disk optimization tool, you might want to try the CleanGenius utility provided by Tools software.

If you like this list of Windows disk utilities, please feel free to share it online to help more people successfully boost and optimize the performance of their computer disks:

#1. Tool - Partition Master

The simplest and most powerful disk utility tool, perfect for beginners on Windows

As an experienced software developer with over 17 years in disk management, has released hundreds of updates for its Windows disk management software – tools Partition Master. Now, it is a powerful and mature hard disk partitioning, disk upgrade, and disk space allocation tool.

Disk Utility download for free:

Featuring an intuitive interface, this software is approachable to any Windows user for disk management tasks. Let's see what you can do with this powerful disk utility:

Basic Disk Management	Advanced Features
Create or delete partitions. Resize, merge, and shrink partitions. Format partitions and change file systems. Check and fix disk errors. Erase hard drive, external hard drive, etc. Change drive letter and label. Hide or show partitions. Convert primary partition to logical and vice versa. Resize dynamic volumes. View disk or partition usage.	Clone HDD/SSD, clone partition to HDD/SSD. Migrate system to another HDD/SSD. Convert MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR without data loss. Adjust disk layout to solve low C drive space issue. Allocate disk space to any partition without deleting or formatting. Automatically create partitions on new hard drive. Recover lost partitions and files. Convert basic disk to dynamic disk and vice versa without data loss. Convert NTFS to FAT32 or FAT32 to NTFS without formatting. Manage hard drive partitions in a WindowsPE bootable media. SSD 4K alignment. Initialize disks. Merge or split partitions without data loss.

Basic Disk Management

Advanced Features

Create or delete partitions.
Resize, merge, and shrink partitions.
Format partitions and change file systems.
Check and fix disk errors.
Erase hard drive, external hard drive, etc.
Change drive letter and label.
Hide or show partitions.
Convert primary partition to logical and vice versa.
Resize dynamic volumes.
View disk or partition usage.

Clone HDD/SSD, clone partition to HDD/SSD.
Migrate system to another HDD/SSD.
Convert MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR without data loss.
Adjust disk layout to solve low C drive space issue.
Allocate disk space to any partition without deleting or formatting.
Automatically create partitions on new hard drive.
Recover lost partitions and files.
Convert basic disk to dynamic disk and vice versa without data loss.
Convert NTFS to FAT32 or FAT32 to NTFS without formatting.
Manage hard drive partitions in a WindowsPE bootable media.
SSD 4K alignment.
Initialize disks.
Merge or split partitions without data loss.

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#Windows Disk Utility#Tools#Partition Manager#Windows Operating System

How to Partition a Hard Drive Using Disk Utility

Step 1. Run Partition Master and check the available space in the "Partition Management" section.

If you have unallocated space on your hard drive, skip to Step 3 to create the partition.

Step 2. Shrink the partition to create unallocated space.

Right-click the target disk partition with plenty of free space and select “Resize/Move Partition”.

Then, you can shrink the partition by dragging either end of it left or right to free up enough unallocated space. You can see how much space you've freed up in the Size field. When you're done, click OK.

Click “Perform XX Task,” and then click “Apply” to save all changes.

When you get back to the “Disk Management” screen, you should see an unallocated section on the same disk, and you can proceed to create a new partition on the hard drive.

Step 3: Create a new partition on the target drive using the unallocated space.

Right-click the unallocated space and choose "New."

Create Partition Step 1

Customize the partition size, drive letter, volume label, and file system (NTFS, FAT32, EXT2/3/4, exFAT) in the "Advanced Settings." Click "OK."

Finally, click “Execute Tasks” and then “Apply” to finish creating the partition using the unallocated space on your disk. Repeat these steps to partition hard drive and create more partitions.

Create Partition Step 3

If you like this disk utility, don't forget to share it online to help more of your friends online:

#2. Built-in Windows Utilities [Free]

Free and Basic Disk Management Tools in Windows

Windows 11 Disk Management screenshot

Unlike Partition Master, Disk Management is a built-in disk utility in Windows that assists Windows users to perform some regular operations on hard drives or external storage devices.

Free Download: Disk Management is built into the Windows operating system. Therefore, you do not need to download it.

So what can you do with this tool? Here are some basics that you might want to try:

Basic Disk Management	Advanced Features
Create, delete, shrink or extend volumes. Change drive letter or partition label. Browse partitions. Format hard disk partitions. Hide or unhide partitions.	Initialize disk. Convert MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR (partitions must be deleted). Basic to Dynamic Disk conversion.

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#Windows Disk Utility#Free#Disk Management

Restrictions:

Unable to clone disks.
No option for OS migration.
You can't merge partitions.
Can't convert NTFS to FAT32 or vice versa.
You can't manage disks without an OS.
More...

How to Use Disk Management to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 11

Compared to tools like Partition Master, it can be a bit more complex and offers fewer disk management features. If you prefer to use it, here's a brief guide on how to open Disk Management and partition a hard drive/SSD on Windows 11 or an older version: 1. **Open Disk Management:** - Right-click the Windows icon (Start menu) on the taskbar. - Select "Disk Management." 2. **View disk information:** - In the Disk Management window, you'll see all hard drives connected to your computer along with their partitions. 3. **Create a new partition:** - Locate the unallocated space where you want to create a partition. - Right-click that area and select "New Simple Volume." - Follow the wizard, specifying the size, assigning a drive letter, choosing a file system (like NTFS), and then finish. 4. **Resize a partition:** - To expand or shrink an existing partition, find the partition, right-click it, and choose "Extend Volume" or "Shrink Volume." - Follow the prompts to proceed. 5. **Format a partition:** - For an existing partition, if you need to change the file system or perform other formatting tasks, right-click the partition and select "Format." - Confirm the formatting settings (like file system type, allocation unit size, etc.), and then click "OK." 6. **Delete a partition:** - To delete a partition, right-click it and choose "Delete Volume." - Note that this will permanently remove data, so make sure to back up important files first. 7. **View changes:** - After completing these actions, Disk Management will automatically apply the changes, and you can see the updated partition layout in the window. Exercise caution as some operations may lead to data loss. Always back up important data before making significant changes.

How to Partition SSD in Windows 11?

Do you know how to partition an SSD on a new Windows 11 computer? Follow this page to learn how to partition SSD in Disk Management on Windows 11.

#3. Windows DiskPart - Built-in Windows Disk Utility [Free]

Windows Disk Management as an Alternative to Disk Utility

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Similar to Disk Management, DiskPart is a command-line disk utility that advanced Windows users can use to perform some basic disk management tasks.

Free Disk Utility Download: This tool also works on Windows, so there's no need to download anything separately.

What can you do with it? The tool is more powerful than Disk Management, but less feature-rich than a Partition Master tool. Let's see the list of features here:

Basic Disk Management	Advanced Features
Create, delete, shrink, or extend volumes. Change drive letters or volume labels. Browse partitions. Format hard disk partitions. Hide or unhide volumes.	Initialize a disk. Convert MBR to GPT, or convert GPT to MBR (partitions must be deleted). Convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk. Clean read-only status and remove write protection from the disk.

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#Windows Disk Utility#Free#Windows 11

How to Create a New Volume Using DiskPart:

Manage partitions with DiskPart CMD

This page provides a detailed guide on how to create a partition using Command Prompt in Windows 11/10. Follow the tutorial to learn how to partition your hard drive yourself.

#4. Tool - CleanGenius

Free disk and computer performance optimizer

CleanGinus tool image

Unlike the first three disk utilities, Windows Genius is more of a device performance optimizer. With this tool, you can directly check your hard drive's space usage (click here to learn how to check) and clean the disk, as well as resolve various device performance issues.

Disk Utility Free Download: You can download it directly following the instructions below.

So what can this tool actually do? Let's have a look.

Basic Functions	Advanced Functions
Disk Cleanup Clean system junk files, unnecessary app files. Clean junk or unnecessary registry files. Clean browser plugins.	Protect privacy in Windows, browsers, and apps. Delete unnecessary files securely. Speed up Windows startup, disable/enable Windows auto-update. Show hidden files, remove disk write protection. Uninstall unnecessary apps or corrupted programs.

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#Disk Optimizer#Windows#Tool

How to use:

Step 1. Download and install the Partition Master Suite tool on your computer. Click on the “Download PC Cleaner” tab on the panel.

Step 2. Install the CleanGenius tool on your computer. First, go to “Clean” and click on “Scan.”

Step 3: CleanGenius will immediately scan all unnecessary files, select system junk files and invalid entries, then click on the “Clean” button to clean your whole computer.

Step 4: When it's done, you'll see how many megabytes or gigabytes of data it removed. Click "Finish" to complete the process.

#5. Defragment Your Disk

Overall Disk Optimizer for Windows [Paid]

Defragmentation image

More than just a disk utility for optimizing your disks, Disk Defrag by auslogics.com also supports performing basic disk management operations and optimizing disk performance simultaneously.

Get a free disk tool: Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro.

What can this tool do on your hard drive? Take a look at the list below:

Basic Functions	Advanced Functions
Defragment hard drives - HDD, SSD, external drives. Defragment files or folders.	Check and fix disk errors. Clean up the disk before defragmentation. Erase free space on the disk. Schedule defragmentation.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

#Disk Optimizer#Free#Windows

What is "Windows Disk Utility"?

Does Windows have a disk utility like macOS? The answer is yes! Similar to the Disk Utility on a Mac, Microsoft includes two disk management tools within the Windows operating system to help users manage and utilize their disk space flexibly.

Windows has two built-in disk tools: Disk Management and Disk Partitions. Both allow users to create, expand, and even delete partitions on their computers for free. However, some beginners have reported that they prefer not to use these free tools to manage disks. The reason is simple: they can be somewhat complicated to use.

So, are there any better Windows disk tools to replace Disk Management and Diskpart? Of course!

Which Windows disk tool should you use?

On this page, we've gathered 5 disk tools for Windows to help you manage and boost the disk performance of your Windows 11/10/8/7 PC.

Refer to the manual and the list of features to figure out which one would work on your computer. If you're still unsure, use these tips to help you decide.

Toolbox: Editor's Picks

• Use Partition Master to manage and take full control of computer disks.

• For free disk partitioning, Disk Management should be sufficient for your needs. • To optimize your system or PC performance, try the CleanGenius utility.