How do you organize your files/folders/backups?

kwerk

kwerk

kwerk

Wise Guy
Soldato
Joined
23 May 2009
Posts
5,748
What is your system for organizing your data, syncing it across devices, and backing it up? This is not quite a software question so I'm asking in GD. Perhaps not what you DO do, but what you ideally would do if you could be bothered.

  • What would your folder structure be?
  • What do you back up, where to and how often? Do you make disk images?
  • How do you keep files/email synced?
Typical hardware:

Desktop
Laptop
Phone
Tablet
Home Server or NAS
External HDs


Typical data:

OS + apps + config
Personal documents
Work docs
Emails, calendar, todo list
Apps/game setup files
Pictures
Music
Video
Backups
 
Not that it makes much difference, but I just use a NAS box... All my photos and videos from my camera I just dump straight on there.

Anything I download automatically gets saved there, as well, so the only thing I have on this computer that isn't backed up is my steam games... which I don't mind because I can just re download them at the end.
 
I don't really take backups but do have some documents on a pen drive.
Emails are hosted by my provider
Photos worth keeping I've usually sent to relatives or social media
CV and suchlike I'll have a fairly recent version on sent email

I did take some backups to CDROM but that was over 10 years ago, probably nothing much worth having now.

Quite a telling thing is that the last time I installed windows I didn't bother copying over my documents so they are still sat on another drive, I haven't needed them often.

The one thing I probably should backup is Quakeworld demo recordings as those I haven't uploaded are irreplaceable. And possibly some old MIRC chat logs.
 
Any pictures or videos I take on my iPhone are automatically synced to my NAS as soon as they are taken or when I'm home and back on wifi.

Everything I download on my PC is downloaded to my NAS drive and also auto back up to either Dropbox or Google.
 
Everything to a NAS every 24 hours on a rolling copy. More important files also get shunted to my server and Dropbox every time a change is made.
 
Data/photos/letters etc etc I don't want to lose are in an encrypted folder on two hard drives running in RAID 1. Weekly dump to a portable hard drive, which is otherwise not connected to stop ransomware getting to it. E-mail is also backed up the same way.
 
Clov!s said:
Any pictures or videos I take on my iPhone are automatically synced to my NAS as soon as they are taken or when I'm home and back on wifi.

Everything I download on my PC is downloaded to my NAS drive and also auto back up to either Dropbox or Google.
Click to expand...

Can I ask how you achieve this exactly?
 
I only bothered while at uni

Data on USB stick was backed up onto 2 different internal HDDs and also on dropbox.
 
I make two backups. One on-site (3.5" disc on NAS) and one off-site on 2.5" external which I keep in a packpack when I'm out.

Folders:

- portable games
- portable apps
- personal folder (diaries etc)
- hobby folder (clubbing, theme parks etc)
- pictures
- music
- paperless office (old scans etc)
- emails
- my docs
 
I believe I have a setup that works quite well for me.

I currently have 7.74TB of storage across 6 drives.

OS DRIVE (240GB)
OS
Programs
Most commonly played games
Documents
Game saves

Games Drive (3TB)
Self explanatory
Steam alone takes up 1TB

Media Drive (2TB)
Pictures
Videos/Films
Music
Etc

Download Drive (500GB)
Torrent files
Chrome downloads
Etc

Backup Drive (2TB)
I use this to backup any important files (mostly pictures/documents and game saves). This is just simply a copy of the folders from other drives.
I perform a backup every 2 days.
 
Local encrypted backup to external and normally disconnected USB (every 4 weeks).

Cloud backup to Crashplan (runs daily)

For anything important.
 
I use Crashplan to backup everything even slightly important to my server (which itself is running Stablebit DrivePool to replicate everything across 2 separate drives), and everything really important (currently around 1TB) also to the Crashplan cloud.
 
About every month I backup to a 1TB harddrive. Every 3 months this harddrive is then backed up to a larger harddrive. So far, I've never had to rely on the larger drive - but the smaller drive always has a recent enough backup for the odd occasion that I need an old file which that I erased.
 
I used to have a complex site to site backup with 2nas and rsync and then sync it all the Crashplan. Now I just dump everything in onedrive which I pay £8 a month for (office 365)
 
Most of my data is treated in the same way, stored on a couple of NASes with backups to a local fileserver which is kept offline when not being used. Important data is also backed up to the cloud, with music to Google Music.

Ripped video is too much for that so is also copied to my Parents via USB disk every 6 months or so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom