How to conveniently organize data on HDD?

Question

Hard disks

Perhaps the question is very banal and idiotic, but I ask for your help.
How convenient and "beautiful" to organize data storage on several HDDs, so that it is easy to find information and remember what is where. No matter how I tried to come up with some kind of methodology, everything is inconvenient, cluttered up and sooner or later becomes a garbage dump.
What we have:
- 3-5 HDDs connected to the computer (or inside), the total space is about 4 TB
- Music, video, work files, projects, installed OS, programs, photos, backups of all stripes, and other things that everyone probably has
What do you need:
- Use the most logical and convenient system for structuring directories and their names, so that you can easily find what and where lies, and supplement with new content, while not confusing the old (for example, if the music is in the MUSIC folder, everything seems to be fine, but adding freshly downloaded albums, problems begin - you forget what exactly you added the last time, and it’s already difficult to find what you wanted to listen to in hundreds of other performers) ...
Tell me how you do it? How do you name and structure folders (to separate more important information from less important, relevant from irrelevant, personal from work, etc.)?
This is an eternal and painful question for many, and I think it will be useful to many - how not to clutter up your screws with an ever-growing amount of information to store ... So that everything is beautiful and convenient, like books on shelves in a library.
Maybe there are some articles (for example, foreign ones) with good tips and life hacks on this topic? I would appreciate answers!

Answer 1

The taste and color :)
I personally like something like this option ...
Work
+ Projects
+ Resources
+ Documentation
Personal
+ Photos
+ Images
+ Music
+ Movies
+ Literature
+ Children
Distribution kits
+ Audio
+ Video
+ Graphics
+ System utilities
+ Games

Answer 2

You know, I've never really bothered with data decomposition.
Try to allocate space for work and leisure time first.
In no case should you create folders downloads or "parse".
I've come to the conclusion that the more specialized the folder, the better. In general, structuring and accounting is a very difficult thing. You have to discipline yourself a lot.
Not sure if it helped, but good luck!

Answer 3

My Documents/2013
My Documents/2012
My Documents/2011
Music/2013
Music/2012
Music/2011
Movies/2013
Movies/2012
…
etc. Convenient for backups (current year in certain folders). Convenient for searching. Convenient for deleting garbage (the folder Soft / current_year_minus_two can be deleted right on the first of January =) )
At first, too, a lot was stuffed into the download and temp folder. Made ramDrive , which is cleared after reboot and the problem is only with some installers that require reboot.
What else is useful ... more symlinks - they really allow you to structure data when the file is in its place (for example,photo / 2010 ), and the folder with documents does not swell from copies (for example, Documents / 2013 / Collage on March 8 / Photo Sources )

Answer 4

If there are a lot of screws, either think of a couple of them in backups, or make something like a big fat RAID, in which to add them all,
and, for example, do something like this:
d:\Common photos
d:\Common music
d: \Shared Video
d:\%userlogin%\Photo
d:\%userlogin%\Video
d:\%userlogin%\Music
d:\%userlogin%\Documents
d:\%userlogin%\Documents\Work
d:\%userlogin %\Documents\Personal
d:\%userlogin%\development\Desktop\
d:\%userlogin%\development\Web\
d:\%userlogin%\development\Scripts\
d:\Install\Inet
d:\Install\ISO
d:\Install\Games (where all games live and installed)
d:\Install\Tools
d:\Install\MS
d:\Install\Media
d:\Install\Office
So, for example, I did it - The only thing I'm looking for is pieces of code about projects.
The only big srach is in the d:\Shared Music\Misc folder, where untagged and unsorted musical compositions are collected

Answer 5

This is from the root, further - worse:
Work
Arj
exe
Soft
Fido :)
Camera Upload
ftp
Games
Melody and mobile
mp3
Video
musor
Kids photo
this is sixteen years old, perhaps modern users see the convenience of structuring differently

Answer 6

I think that there is no single correct and working system for everyone.
The secret is to periodically review the existing structure and change it in parallel with your own evolution.
As in the household, ruthlessly deleting what has not been used for a long time - it not only takes up space, but also takes up the useful space of the structure, forcing you to spend more time digging.
The second secret is to choose a system and stick to it no matter what. When shortcomings are noticeable - improve immediately. Do not save, as rightly noted, in the trash folder tmp or downloads.
It's also a good idea to structure it so that frequently used information is easier and faster to access.

Answer 7

And at one time I used the My Documents folder, and everything else is already in it: My music, My videos, My photos, etc.

Answer 8

In order to understand how you lay out content, you need to know the specifics of your work, life, and even household. In addition to the butts Install (Soft), Movies, Music - I think everything else will be deeply personal. For example, your wife likes to have everything of her own in her folder. You will have to create a folder, say Natasha, in which she will put everything personal. If you have your own purchased programs or different OS, then you will need to make folders either Bought/Mac, Bought/Linux, Bought/Windows or Install/Mac/Bought, Install/Linux/Bought, Install/Windows/Bought. It is not known whether you use audio, video, photo collection managers. The folder structure also depends on this - either by date, or by topic, or by location of shooting or recording, or everything is dumped into one folder, but the metadata is well spelled out. For example, I had a Literature folder, it has many sections including Languages, Networks, Unix, Windows, Magazines, Video, etc. where I keep technical documentation. It is impossible to immediately make the structure forever. For example, you accumulate a Unix folder, and then decide to re-sort to Editors, Shells, Linux, BSD, MacOS, Other.

Answer 9

Throw music in the music folder, and use some normal player with a library. I use amarok and cmus. Similarly for movies/series, try XBMC with a cataloger.

Answer 10

I store in the places allocated for this by the authors of the OS (documents, music, films, etc., additionally I started only directories with virtual machines and projects). Music is ordered in the playlist itself, by artist and album, the time when I added it does not matter. I usually delete movies after watching, in rare cases I upload them to NAS (its file structure is also quite linear, without any special problems). If there are several screws, I would try to unify them incorrectly.