Dell
Swinger
As of the time of writing this thread, I have around 25 terabytes of overall storage, but a lot of that is empty or duplicate data. Since the mere act of hoarding is getting impossible to manage, I have begun to sort through my files, although having over 3000 unsorted downloads makes it rather difficult to decide where to place things, particularly whenever I already have a poor system to begin with.
To start with, I have begun to consider heavier folder and file naming schemes, alongside special software to help further with file sorting. However, my main system will remain folder/file-name schemes, as those will work globally. Taking videos as an example:
/vid/
/vid/films/
/vid/films/title_date_studio_resolution_features_tags.extension
"Features" is stuff like whether HDR, 3D, or VR are supported. Tags is to make searching easier, for movies/shows maybe "genre" would be better but eh. Subtitle support can be done by simply adding title_date_studio_resolution_features.srt or vtt, so those are not necessary to embed into the original video stream or otherwise denote.
To simplify, the idea here is that it'd be incredibly easy, on any file manager, to just find the file I want and information about it off of the mere title. I may add folders, such as having a folder on a per-studio/author basis, but the idea is to remain the same. Furthermore, my main HDD, a 6TB HDD, has 17 "base" folders, which all will serve different purposes, however, I have considered an alternative routing method in the future, if this does not work out overtime.
Downloads -- Unsorted downloads folder, intended to be sorted at some point once a better system is established.
Projects -- WIP things, basically for temporary assets that will be rearchived or deleted later, that or Shotcut/GIMP project files which'll just link to the necessary assets.
Torrents - Torrent files, mainly found it easier to have a dedicated torrents folder than to just include a title_date_author_[res/ver]_features file with every file, but this may change in the future if I get more into torrenting, and/or start having dedicated torrents for each individual file, rather than massive collections of files like normal.
Messages - Just private messages, emails/XMPP and stuff of that sort.
Archives - Specifically for stuff like .ZIP folders
Documents - Legal or miscallenous documents which are important to me. Books too I put here tho.
Videos - Movies, TV Shows, Livestreams, and also internet videos too.
Images - Graphs, screenshots, etc.
Code - GIT Repos mainly, maybe the occasional non-GIT stuff that happens to be open-source?
Software - Games/Emulators mainly, the occasional technical/niche thing too.
Saves - Game saves, I prefer to separate it from /software/games/ whenever possible.
Audio - Speeches, music, etc.
Miscallenous - The rare files that don't fit into any of these, but also don't really deserve their own home folder.
Databases - Exports of website databases, essentially.
Models - 3D models, maybe animations for them too?
Replays - Specifically stuff like Doom/Quake Demo replays, maybe Halo 3/4/Reach/ODST replay files too. MAY consider moving these into /vid/ in a folder named "replays" though, since they'd be better there.
Temporary - Temporary file folder for things that'd be deleted after their use is finished.
Having established this, what are your file/folder schemes? Furthermore, what do you archive and how much do you have archived? Between everything, I think I'll *barely* be below the 6TB limit I currently want to impose upon myself after I finish sorting everything. Furthermore, I want to flesh out the base folders with further useful things, perhaps a /vm/ folder, but also, remove what is likely unnecessary, perhaps the /replays/ and /torrents/ folders?
To start with, I have begun to consider heavier folder and file naming schemes, alongside special software to help further with file sorting. However, my main system will remain folder/file-name schemes, as those will work globally. Taking videos as an example:
/vid/
/vid/films/
/vid/films/title_date_studio_resolution_features_tags.extension
"Features" is stuff like whether HDR, 3D, or VR are supported. Tags is to make searching easier, for movies/shows maybe "genre" would be better but eh. Subtitle support can be done by simply adding title_date_studio_resolution_features.srt or vtt, so those are not necessary to embed into the original video stream or otherwise denote.
To simplify, the idea here is that it'd be incredibly easy, on any file manager, to just find the file I want and information about it off of the mere title. I may add folders, such as having a folder on a per-studio/author basis, but the idea is to remain the same. Furthermore, my main HDD, a 6TB HDD, has 17 "base" folders, which all will serve different purposes, however, I have considered an alternative routing method in the future, if this does not work out overtime.
Downloads -- Unsorted downloads folder, intended to be sorted at some point once a better system is established.
Projects -- WIP things, basically for temporary assets that will be rearchived or deleted later, that or Shotcut/GIMP project files which'll just link to the necessary assets.
Torrents - Torrent files, mainly found it easier to have a dedicated torrents folder than to just include a title_date_author_[res/ver]_features file with every file, but this may change in the future if I get more into torrenting, and/or start having dedicated torrents for each individual file, rather than massive collections of files like normal.
Messages - Just private messages, emails/XMPP and stuff of that sort.
Archives - Specifically for stuff like .ZIP folders
Documents - Legal or miscallenous documents which are important to me. Books too I put here tho.
Videos - Movies, TV Shows, Livestreams, and also internet videos too.
Images - Graphs, screenshots, etc.
Code - GIT Repos mainly, maybe the occasional non-GIT stuff that happens to be open-source?
Software - Games/Emulators mainly, the occasional technical/niche thing too.
Saves - Game saves, I prefer to separate it from /software/games/ whenever possible.
Audio - Speeches, music, etc.
Miscallenous - The rare files that don't fit into any of these, but also don't really deserve their own home folder.
Databases - Exports of website databases, essentially.
Models - 3D models, maybe animations for them too?
Replays - Specifically stuff like Doom/Quake Demo replays, maybe Halo 3/4/Reach/ODST replay files too. MAY consider moving these into /vid/ in a folder named "replays" though, since they'd be better there.
Temporary - Temporary file folder for things that'd be deleted after their use is finished.
Having established this, what are your file/folder schemes? Furthermore, what do you archive and how much do you have archived? Between everything, I think I'll *barely* be below the 6TB limit I currently want to impose upon myself after I finish sorting everything. Furthermore, I want to flesh out the base folders with further useful things, perhaps a /vm/ folder, but also, remove what is likely unnecessary, perhaps the /replays/ and /torrents/ folders?
