I have a 1TB drive and 2 external USB drives but, since my system is used for all personal business, my HD is cluttered and disorganized. I'm not talking about fragmented drives but general filing schemes and file organization. What do you wonderful folks use as a scheme to organize music and general housekeeping?

My strategy is to have different computers for different uses. One for general use, one for music and one for business.

Prior to having the extra computers, I used different logins, ie. MUSIC, BUSINESS, PERSONAL, each having the email, network etc settings as I needed for that pursuit. For example in those days, I would have a lot of stuff turned off in the MUSIC login (not so necessary anymore)... but having different logins allows specific configurations.

Also, having different drives lets you keep the operating system separate from the app data, which always seemed to speed things up for me.

I also tend to keep folders on the desktop that have nothing in them but shortcuts. Therefore a MUSIC folder would contain shortcuts to BIAB, RB, SONAR, AUDACITY etc
A BUSINESS folder would contain shortcuts to EXCEL, POWERPOINT, ONLINE BANKING etc

That way I don't really have to organize the hard drive, because my method of finding the stuff is organized.

I'm sure you'll get a lot of answers to this. That's mine.

Think of your hard drive as a filing cabinet. Name the "drawers" of the hard drive just as you would a filing cabinet. Then inside each "drawer" you have folders, just as you do your filing cabinet. Inside those "folders" you have "papers", files on your computer = papers in a folder in a file cabinet.

I always thought that the organization thing is *WHY* I love my computer.
Therefore I let the computer do the searching for things when I can't recall where I put 'em, but I do place files in frequent temporal use on the desktop, or shortcuts to same there.

But you should see my desk... (or maybe you shouldn't see that perpetual mess!)


--Mac

Mac, thanks for checking in on this topic.

I use the SEARCH field on the bottom of the START menu and have become adequately proficient with it but my desktop screen is literally filed with frequently used icons. I hope to reduce that to about 10-12 folders which will contain my most-used apps. My mp3s are poorly organized and photos are scattered everywhere. I am not accustomed to such chaos. I love the LIBRARIES feature of Win 7, it saves a lot of search time.

I have DAW apps including BIAB, RealBand, Audacity, etc. in a folder named "DAW" but, other than that, it's pure, unadulterated chaos. I started into the project of grouping my programs this afternoon then quickly realized it's more than an afternoon's endeavor. I have nearly 50,000 OTR (old time radio) shows alone. I ran a duplicate file finder and discovered about 8,000 duplicates.

This could well turn into a lifetime project.

My 2 cents worth is some advice from a series of Keyboard Magazine articles on keeping your music computer maintained.

The suggestion was to partition the hard drives into smaller separate drives. I couldn't do this on the XP as it came already formatted with one drive only. When I got the laptop a couple of years ago I decided to give it a go, and I haven't looked back.

The laptop came with 250GB (pathetic isn't it!) It was divided into the main OS drive and a Data drive. I kept the main C drive for the OS and my programme files with shortcuts to them on the desktop.

The data drive I partitioned into separate drives for my saved my music files. There's one for Sibelius, one for WAV files and so on. I needed more storage earlier this year so I bought an external 500GB drive and have partitioned that as well.

The external drive has all my PG programmes, audio files and libraries on it. If the laptop goes up in smoke I at least have the really important stuff on the external drive.

It makes defragmenting easier and quicker as the whole computer doesn't have to be done all the time.

The last thing I'll add is if you go this way, allow a lot more on each partition than you think you'll need. It sure fills up fast!

Anyway that's my take on it. I'm sure there will be lots of other great ideas.

Got to go, students here very soon. Best of luck.

Even back in the DOS days of limited hard drive space, this was still important. My approach is like Eddie and Pat's to use folders. Lots of them. There is no limit to the number of folders you can have under a folder (well, alright, I think it might still be 128 max under a top level folder, but that's plenty).

Everything in its place.

This makes backing up easier, too. Then take a copy off-site.

I greatly prefer this to loads of small partitions.

And about putting lots of stuff on the desktop - this used to have quite a negative effect on start-up time. Not much anymore.

The easiest way to get organized in a situation like you are speaking of is to make a seperate folder for work, home, and music. copy these to your desktop. Then as you create a new document, song etc; just place it in the proper folder. Also be sure to make folders inside the folder, that way it cuts down on clutter and makes things easier to find. As an example, I mix my music using Qbase, I have a Qbase folder for every year I have been working with it. Inside each years folder is a folder for each song I have ever done in that year. Inside the individual song folders are the biab files, the wave files and the saved Qbase files. Since you have 2 usb I would use 1 for storing home documents and the other to store band in a box, music etc. Use the computer only to save your work documents. Note as I told you earlier to make a folder for work, home and music. Once you have put everything into the proper file you can just drag to usb drive. Very important make sure every so often you make a back up of your files on the usb, I lost some very important info by not. I hope this helps!

Actually using a program called Partition Magic you could have divided that original drive into anything you wanted. You REALLY need to be careful with partitioning into smaller drives. The first time you try to do an install and run out of space you'll be cursing the decision. I really suggest the hierarchical "folders" method. Build it like a big tree.

Yes, I have experienced the "excessive use of Partition Magic syndrome" last year. Some here may remember my desperate screams for help. I finally undid the changes and reverted back to a single partition.

Every folder that I open has a mixture of file types. I have pictures mixed in with personal documents and music mp3s literally everywhere. I've had this computer nearly three years without a filing scheme so you can only imagine the chaos and clutter. I hesitate to move stuff around willie-nillie for fear that some program will need them where they are and not be able to find them.

Welp, back to organizing.

Thanks all, for the great practical wisdom.

Organizing a desktop is a tedious task. Once you have you accidentally hit align to grid or sort alphabetically. Just when I was about to create something to easier reorganize I came upon a software nice:
http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/
This program helps you to keep your desktop organized -- according to your liking.

Guido

Guido, I downloaded it. It's a step forward, at least.

Danke.

Yes, Stardock Fences for free looks very handy.

Yes Matt, it is. I have it on all of my computers.

One positive side effect (I don't know if this is already implemented in Windows 7 since I don't have a computer without it):

AltGr plus one of the arrow keys turns the screen oritentation [top = the direction of the key].

Guido

Bitte.

I totally agree about being very careful with partitions. When I first started down this route, I made the mistake of too many small drives, not allowing enough room and had to move things round etc.

After a virus forced me to reformat the entire computer, I started again with much larger ones. I only create a new volume as I need it and leave free space available to extend the drive if necessary.

I hope to get a new computer just for music with the the Tera size HD and I'll work the same way with it. I like seeing the separate drives, I know if they're filling up and I can just defrag the ones that need it, usually the Sib drive as I'm editing and saving all the time.

This is just the way that suits me and I'm happy with, so please don't think I'm trying to push my way of organizing on to anyone or anything. I just wanted to explain that I don't use lots of small partitions, rather a few larger ones with room to expand.

A good subject to discuss, lots of food for thought.

Back to organizing and HD housekeeping and, I must say, Fences is/are the proverbial cat's whiskers. I simply ran Fences and it intelligently organized my desktop icons into four fenced groups according to content file types. I highly recommend it. It does the hierarchical tree, that several have suggested, automagically.

Thanks again, Guido!

Don, I installed Fences on a test PC. I like what you can do with the appearance of icon groupings. I did not like two things:

1) you can no longer sort the remaining icons
2) upon restarting Windows, it takes much longer for the screen to draw all the icons

Did you experience that as well?

Matt, I haven't explored it very deeply yet. I certainly hope we can sort the other icons. I wouldn't have noticed the slow redraw because I never shut down my desktop computer. Are you on a laptop? You might try "hibernate" or a different shutdown mode.

Quote:

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Mac, thanks for checking in on this topic.

I use the SEARCH field on the bottom of the START menu and have become adequately proficient with it but my desktop screen is literally filed with frequently used icons. I hope to reduce that to about 10-12 folders which will contain my most-used apps. My mp3s are poorly organized and photos are scattered everywhere. I am not accustomed to such chaos. I love the LIBRARIES feature of Win 7, it saves a lot of search time.

I have DAW apps including BIAB, RealBand, Audacity, etc. in a folder named "DAW" but, other than that, it's pure, unadulterated chaos. I started into the project of grouping my programs this afternoon then quickly realized it's more than an afternoon's endeavor. I have nearly 50,000 OTR (old time radio) shows alone. I ran a duplicate file finder and discovered about 8,000 duplicates.

This could well turn into a lifetime project.

---

Ever notice the, "There are unused icons on your desktop" thingie?

In the Windows system, boot times will be slower when there is a lot of stuff on the desktop. I know that's true for XP but haven't really tried it out with Win7 as I keep that machine's desktop rather lean out of habit.

I suppose that placing the icons into folders on the desktop would be a bit faster and use less resources than having them ALL visible would, though.


--Mac