Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
Your AWS, Azure or Google Cloud account probably already lists likely savings: idle resources, oversized virtual machines and storage that could sit in a cheaper tier. Treat each of those entries as a lead to verify, not an instruction to carry out. Check the recommendation against how the workload actually behaves, make the smallest reversible change, and confirm the bill afterward. Purchase commitments such as Savings Plans or reservations are a separate decision and should come last.
Where the recommendations live
- AWS: Cost Optimization Hub consolidates recommendations across accounts and Regions, with filtering and prioritization. It covers rightsizing, idle resource deletion, and Savings Plans or Reserved Instances. Supported resource types include EC2, EBS, Lambda, Fargate, RDS, Aurora, ElastiCache, DynamoDB, DocumentDB, OpenSearch, Redshift, SageMaker, WorkSpaces and NAT Gateway. Its savings estimates incorporate your applicable AWS commercial terms, such as discounts already in effect.
- Azure: Advisor recommendations appear in Cost Management when you open it at the subscription or management-group scope you need. They cover usage inefficiencies, purchase options, VM resize or shutdown, and storage choices. Check the scope first, because a subscription-level view can hide inefficiencies in a neighboring subscription.
- Google Cloud: Google’s FinOps guide groups the main levers into idle-resource removal, rightsizing, storage lifecycle management and committed-use discounts, and it uses an effort-versus-savings matrix to rank them.
Console labels, menu locations and recommendation availability change over time. Confirm them in your own console before you follow any step below.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Start with idle resources
Idle means something different in each provider’s rules. Each provider measures idleness over its own window and with its own thresholds, so the results cannot be compared directly.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems| Provider and feature | Observation window | Low-use or idle rule as documented | Caveat from the provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS rightsizing recommendations (EC2) | Prior 14 days | Maximum CPU utilization at or below 1% is classed as idle and can receive a termination recommendation | Analysis also weighs memory (when enabled), network, local disk I/O and attached EBS performance; AWS describes the recommendations as conservative |
| Azure Advisor low-utilization VM recommendation | Seven days of monitoring | CPU at or below 5% and network usage at or below 7 MB, on four or more days | Low use can be intentional; verify utilization before resizing |
| Google Cloud Unattended Project Recommender | 30 days | Projects with low usage | Identifies projects, not individual resources |
| Google Cloud idle VM recommendations | 14 days | VMs, persistent disks, IP addresses and custom disk images that are unused | Also covers idle GKE clusters in the same guide |
A recommendation of this kind is a prompt to find out who uses the resource. Many resources are quiet by design: a disaster-recovery standby, a month-end batch host or an archive VM may show almost no activity for most of the year. Ask the owner before you touch anything. Deletion is the least reversible option, so it should be the last step for any resource you cannot confirm is unused.
#1 Best Overall
- Entry-level NAS Personal Storage：UGREEN NAS DH2300 is your first and best NAS made easy. It is designed for beginners who want a simple, private way to store videos, photos and personal files, which is intuitive for users moving from cloud storage or external drives and move away from scattered date across devices. This entry-level NAS 2-bay perfect for personal entertainment, photo storage, and easy data backup (doesn't support Docker or virtual machines).
- Set Your Devices Free, Expand Your Digital World: This unified storage hub supports massive capacity up to 64TB.*Storage drives not included. Stop Deleting, Start Storing. You can store 22 million 3MB images, or 2 million 30MB songs, or 43K 1.5GB movies or 67 million 1MB documents! UGREEN NAS is a better way to free up storage across all your devices such as phones, computers, tablets and also does automatic backups across devices regardless of the operating system—Window, iOS, Android or macOS.
- The Smarter Long-term Way to Store: Unlike cloud storage with recurring monthly fees, a UGREEN NAS enclosure requires only a one-time purchase for long-term use. For example, you only need to pay $459.98 for a NAS, while for cloud storage, you need to pay $719.88 per year, $2,159.64 for 3 years, $3,599.40 for 5 years. You will save $6,738.82 over 10 years with UGREEN NAS! *NAS cost based on DH2300 + 12TB HDD; cloud cost based on 12TB plan (e.g. $59.99/month).
- Blazing Speed, Minimal Power: Equipped with a high-performance processor, 1GbE port, and 4GB RAM on Board, this NAS handles multiple tasks with ease. File transfers reach up to 125MB/s—a 1GB file takes only 8 seconds. Don't let slow clouds hold you back; they often need over 100 seconds for the same task. The difference is clear.
- Let AI Better Organize Your Memories: UGREEN NAS uses AI to tag faces, locations, texts, and objects—so you can effortlessly find any photo by searching for who or what's in it in seconds. It also automatically finds and deletes similar or duplicate photo, backs up live photos and allows you to share them with your friends or family with just one tap. Everything stays effortlessly organized, powered by intelligent tagging and recognition.
Google’s guide cites the kinds of waste that accumulate most often in this category: unattached disks, quarantined VMs and aged snapshots. Those are usually the cheapest places to start because they carry little performance risk, though they still need an owner’s sign-off.
Right-sizing: the change that needs the most care
Right-sizing recommendations suggest a smaller or differently priced instance type based on observed use. AWS applies a cheaper-modification test to instances above the idle threshold, so an instance that is busy enough to keep but larger than it needs can still be flagged. The analysis considers more than CPU, which matters for memory-heavy or disk-heavy workloads that CPU alone would misjudge.
Azure’s guidance adds a practical constraint. Resizing a VM restarts it, so schedule the change in a maintenance window and confirm that the application tolerates the restart. Google’s recommenders extend the same idea to Compute Engine rightsizing and to Cloud SQL overprovisioning.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Rank #2
- Value NAS with RAID for centralized storage and backup for all your devices. Check out the LS 700 for enhanced features, cloud capabilities, macOS 26, and up to 7x faster performance than the LS 200.
- Connect the LinkStation to your router and enjoy shared network storage for your devices. The NAS is compatible with Windows and macOS*, and Buffalo's US-based support is on-hand 24/7 for installation walkthroughs. *Only for macOS 15 (Sequoia) and earlier. For macOS 26, check out our LS 700 series.
- Subscription-Free Personal Cloud – Store, back up, and manage all your videos, music, and photos and access them anytime without paying any monthly fees.
- Storage Purpose-Built for Data Security – A NAS designed to keep your data safe, the LS200 features a closed system to reduce vulnerabilities from 3rd party apps and SSL encryption for secure file transfers.
- Back Up Multiple Computers & Devices – NAS Navigator management utility and PC backup software included. NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier. You can set up automated backups of data on your computers.
The safest right-sizing sequence is to make one change per workload, observe the application’s health metrics through a full business cycle, and only then apply the next change. A smaller instance that handles average load but fails at a monthly peak will cost more in incidents than it saves.
Storage lifecycle is its own decision
Storage recommendations depend on access patterns rather than on whether a resource is running. Google’s guide describes Cloud Storage Autoclass, which moves objects between storage classes based on how they are accessed. Google quotes Ian Matthews, CEO of Redivis, describing Autoclass as helping the company “reduce storage costs and achieve price predictability in a simple and automated way.” That is a customer’s statement about Google’s product, presented in Google’s guide, not an independent measurement.
Before you move data to a cheaper tier, check the retrieval and early-deletion charges that apply to that tier, and how often your applications read the data. A tier that is cheap to store but expensive to read can increase costs for frequently accessed data. Azure’s Advisor storage recommendations and AWS’s lifecycle tooling follow the same logic, so review the access pattern first and the price second.
Rank #3
- Easy-to-use desktop hard drive—simply plug in the power adapter and USB cable
- Fast file transfers with USB 3.3
- Drag-and-drop file saving right out of the box
- Automatic recognition of Windows and Mac computers for simple setup (Reformatting required for use with Time Machine)
- Enjoy peace of mind with the included limited warranty and Rescue Data Recovery Services
Commitments come after the cleanup
Savings Plans and reservations lower the rate in exchange for a usage commitment. They make sense only for usage that is stable and that you expect to continue. They also depend on existing commercial terms, such as enterprise discounts, so a recommendation that ignores them can be misleading in either direction.
Make commitments after you have removed idle capacity and right-sized the remaining workloads. Committing to today’s oversized instances locks in waste for the length of the term. AWS’s rightsizing estimates account for existing Reserved Instance and Savings Plans coverage, but AWS states that second-order effects, such as the resulting availability of Reserved Instance hours, are not captured. Treat the commitment figure as a starting estimate and check how the reservation would apply to your fleet.
The sequence for each change
- Inspect the recommendation and its usage window. Note the window, the thresholds and the metrics the provider used. Check whether the window covered a normal business cycle.
- Identify the owner and the workload. Find the team responsible, the application the resource supports and any scheduled jobs that might not appear in the metrics.
- Assess performance and operational risk. Review CPU, memory, network and disk metrics for peak periods. Decide whether a restart, a deletion or a tier change would affect users or recovery procedures.
- Make a reversible change where possible. Stop rather than delete, snapshot before removing a disk, or resize one instance first. Record the previous configuration so you can restore it.
- Check the bill and service health afterward. Confirm the application is healthy, then compare actual cost with the estimate once the next billing data appears.
Reading the savings numbers
Every estimate in these consoles is directional. Azure states that resizing may not realize the full “potential yearly savings” shown for shutting down or removing a VM. AWS’s estimates are based on usage and applicable On-Demand rates, and they exclude the second-order effects noted above. Neither provider promises the figure you see on screen.
Rank #4
- Value NAS with RAID for centralized storage and backup for all your devices. Check out the LS 700 for enhanced features, cloud capabilities, macOS 26, and up to 7x faster performance than the LS 200.
- Connect the LinkStation to your router and enjoy shared network storage for your devices. The NAS is compatible with Windows and macOS*, and Buffalo's US-based support is on-hand 24/7 for installation walkthroughs. *Only for macOS 15 (Sequoia) and earlier. For macOS 26, check out our LS 700 series.
- Subscription-Free Personal Cloud – Store, back up, and manage all your videos, music, and photos and access them anytime without paying any monthly fees.
- Storage Purpose-Built for Data Security – A NAS designed to keep your data safe, the LS200 features a closed system to reduce vulnerabilities from 3rd party apps and SSL encryption for secure file transfers.
- Back Up Multiple Computers & Devices – NAS Navigator management utility and PC backup software included. NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier. You can set up automated backups of data on your computers.
Google’s guide reports a result from PayPal, labeled “5% reduction in annual cost avoidance — Google Cloud, 2025.” According to the guide, PayPal reached that result after a few months of analysis and execution focused on unattached disks, quarantined VMs and aged snapshots. Present this as one vendor-reported case study, not as a benchmark for your account. The guide does not provide an independent measurement method, and no neutral comparison of recommendation accuracy across the three providers is available, so use each recommendation as a lead to verify.
Make it a recurring habit
Run the sequence once a month for the largest cost centers first. Keep a short log that records each recommendation, the owner’s decision, the change made and the actual cost change. Over several cycles, the log shows which recommendation types are accurate for your workloads and which need more scrutiny. That record is more useful than any single savings estimate.
Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchPC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
