So for the last 48 hours I have been busy cleaning out my computer files. Let me tell you it has not been fun, and i'm not even a 1/4 finished yet. With the storage capacity of today's hard drives it has become all to easy to keep everything we download. I have found some programs that won't even run any more on my hard drive, as they were for older OS's. Why do i keep all this stuff?!

I have devised a system to keep all my stuff in order. It begins with a download folder. I use this folder for everything I download. In it I have many subfolders, such as, programs, photos, drivers, movies, music, ect... and I have sub folders in each of thoes too. Now I know what everyone is thinking..."I do that too!"...but do you really do it on do you let it pile up in one folder or even several folders across a few drives like I did. shure I had a few folders made but not nearly enough.

I also have a few extra drives too. These will be re-partitioned, and renamed also to reflect what each drive will have on it. IE...photos, movies, music, and what have you. I fore see a long road ahead. Also backup's. How often do you back everything up. I know I haven't done a backup in months, so a simple raid setup would be the order of the day for backing up my important stuff, as well as cdr copies too. Just to be safe.

Well now that the ball is in motion....Happy organizing,

My set up is slightly different. I have a main server, my router, which is a 200MMX, has the biggest HDD's, 3 10 gigs, it doubles as my fileserver. Anything I DL gets DL'ed to that PC and copied to whatever PC needs it so I dont have to DL it again, this is useful for stuff like DirectX setup or driver files for your hardware. It's even better because if I need something, I don't need to fire up a separate PC for it, it's always on.

I also use it to store all my AutoCAD stuff, all my drawings and shiznit are so detailed they require their own separate HDD.

Sounds similar to my own recent efforts Ducati...lol...I think I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Close to 300gigs with various partitions. The best move so far has been having a Setups partition, where I can easily update/backup my drivers and programs installation files.
Helps keep things sorted and updated, and makes reinstalls cake.

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Do what I do when I have broken programs and millions of registry entrys and spy ware programs... reinstall!! I love a fresh reinstall

I use a SORT folder that is broken down into programs, data etc - when one of them reaches 500mb ish I burn 2 copies of it......one left on the desk to use and one in a box in the closet. If my daily use copy get scratched etc I just make a copy of my second disc from the closet.

The only exemption to this is my music. I recently converted all 300+ cds of mine to mp3s. That would take WAY to many cdrs to burn so in addition to the mp3s on my PC harddrive I also keep them on my 20gb 2.5" portable hard drive - as long as they both dont die at the same time Im good. Also handy cause you have your music with you whereever you go - as long as you have a PC to play it.

My movies are way to large to backup - I dont even bother trying. If that harddrive dies Im just outta luck.......at over 1 gb each they fill about 100 gbs of hard drive space right now. As I store newer ones I remove the older ones.....the only reason they are there is for backup purposes anyway. I still have the originals buts its handy to throw them on the portable hard drive and haul them around for viewing.......just VIEWING.......no ILLEGAL copying going on.........I dont even think about it.

The only drive I backup on a regular basis is my OS drive. I use DriveImage 7.0 formerly from PowerQuest. They were recently purchased from Symantec - if you get beat them buy them! My OS drive is a 36.7gb Raptor. Have less than 10gbs used and it take about 5 mins to image to my 160gb data drive. DriveImage is setup to image every Tuesday I believe.....plus I do an image right before I do anything drastic.

Thanks for the wake up call Ducati. I've had a system for doing that too, but I've gotten lazy and havent even done anything in way too long Glad you brought this up

I use partitions like this: WinXP, Office, Music, Small Pgms, Games, Holding, Temp, Graphic Pgm, Misc, Backup Pgms, Backup1, Backup2. This is what I've become comfortable with. My Backup Programs, Backup1, and Backup2 are on my spare drives. I (try) to image my RAID at least once every week to two weeks and keep two full images with incrementals of C: only.

so i guess you bought a copy of that "New Folder" from ebay?

i really need to clean up my files...the only stuff that i was basically backing up periodically is all my programing stuff..

i mean if i had a crash while development of pr...we might not have seen pr 2 for quite some time LOL

i usially raid 2x 120gb hdd...partiton about 20gb of it for xp and all the "needed" programs

then the rest of raid is for games/movies/otehr progs/downloads and whatnot

then i have a 80gb that i put backup of favorite movies/games and some progs...and all my programing stuff

now ive got an extra 180gb hdd so i need to rearange this system somehow

That is funny because I recently started to "Spring Clean" my hard drives as well. My main workstation with the 120GB RAID 5 array holds all of my completely vital stuff like PimpRig backups, email backups and stuf like that. It also is the main partition that runs my apps and games. This virtually guarantees that I won't lose my stuff. RAID5 0wnz me.

I recently got smart and formatted a pc and then instaleld ONLY the apps I use to test gear. My AMD box had a 20GB drive in it that I use for archiving, file serving, and serves my ISOs. I am going to move that to a small shuttle bix which is going in teh living room as a HTPC and file server. THEN, whenever I need to test something I simply create a newly ghosted drive, bot up the machine and update drivers, and I am ready to go. Big difference vs hours of installs.

I have begun to use a central dload point and then delete files that i dont like or wont use again. THEN after that start to get to be too much I burn it to DVD. Backup heaven.

Yeah I recently considered getting a DVD drive just for backup purposes......but instead bought a Raptor. Didnt do me any good on data security but damn XP boots quick compared to my old 5400 rpm Maxtor.

When media prices drop I will have one but there still a little pricey right now......or maybe Im too cheap either way :-)

That's why I got a DVD+-RW. I haven't used it yet, if the rewritable works then I will keep backups of my backed-up backups.

Didnt see it mentioned but if your really worried about files that are just laying around and not gonna be used anymore you can go get XPLite from http://www.litepc.com and use it to get rid of various bs what windows has lingering around... like the Windows Tour that you only ever see when you first load your Pc which is 25mb, Windows Messenger (since most everyone has MSN messenger), and alot of other BS.. Power users can really clean house with this..

I am hoping they eventually bring XP to a extreamly small foot print.. I have looked into XP Embeded a little but it looks like its still not something I really wanna try to mess with...
The ppl over at LitePC.com have a Windows 98 booting from 16MB Compact Flash on a Jumptec single board PC with 3MB FREE space - NO compression, NO ramdrive!!