9 ms·

Ask HN: How do you organize data on your disk?

12 points by networked 11y ago

Your projects, repositories, documents, media and other data files — what does the directory hierarchy that holds them look like? How did you come up with it?

kalzium 11y ago
I'm really horrible at this. As neat as I keep my git repos, I'm a chaotic keeping my disk organized. My desktop started to regularly get crowded with files since I had a computer with an OS that made that possible. Still move everything to "Stuff" whenever it gets too crowded and I don't want to make the decision yet whether I should delete this particular file or not. At least I have a "Code", "Git" and "Stuff" folder now.
zhte415 11y ago
Corporate (banking) - across multiple departments and users - but I'd like to share: Bucket |- filename1 |- filename2 |- filename3 |- filename4 |- filename5 |- ... I'm not joking. This is because I worked in an organisation where directory structures and silo'd access across each department were removed, and everything got thrown into a pool of documents with files that needed to be correctly names, and attached meta data filled out. Most people hated it. But I loved it, because it brought a discipline of accurate filenames and attaching correct meta-data. It brought strong disciplines on security/permissions. It brought an audit trail of who had opened or edited what and when. Whenever I see a department of a company with endless directory upon directory of files with data replicated across them, I know the department has big people trouble - stuff is being done manually and operational controls are weak. Like seeing Excel sheets with merged cells = non-normalised tables that cannot be pivot-tabled = staff don't know basic Excel functionality = stuff is being done manually, time wasted, effort duplicated. Everything was accessed by search. This also brought strong levels of discovery: Formerly, a document in another department could have been useful to me, but I'd not know of its existence unless I'd caught wind of someone working on this problem before. Now, with correct permissioning, I would see it through search. This saved incredible amounts of time. I also know that what I wrote 10 years ago isn't stuck in a directory that no one knows exists, it is at the fingertips of anyone who needs it.
zhte415 11y ago
Corporate (banking) - across multiple departments and users - but I'd like to share: Bucket |- filename1 |- filename2 |- filename3 |- filename4 |- filename5 |- ... I'm not joking. This is because I worked in an organisation where directory structures and silo'd access across each department were removed, and everything got thrown into a pool of documents with files that needed to be correctly names, and attached meta data filled out. Most people hated it. But I loved it, because it brought a discipline of accurate filenames and attaching correct meta-data. It brought strong disciplines on security/permissions. It brought an audit trail of who had opened or edited what and when. Whenever I see a department of a company with endless directory upon directory of files with data replicated across them, I know the department has big people trouble - stuff is being done manually and operational controls are weak. Like seeing Excel sheets with merged cells = non-normalised tables that cannot be pivot-tabled = staff don't know basic Excel functionality = stuff is being done manually, time wasted, effort duplicated. Everything was accessed by search. This also brought strong levels of discovery: Formerly, a document in another department could have been useful to me, but I'd not know of its existence unless I'd caught wind of someone working on this problem before. Now, with correct permissioning, I would see it through search. This saved incredible amounts of time. I also know that what I wrote 10 years ago isn't stuck in a directory that no one knows exists, it is at the fingertips of anyone who needs it.
deleted 11y ago
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jcoffland 11y ago
My home directory looks something like this: bin/ - scripts I use build/ - software I build doc/ biz/ taxes/ YYYY/ ... budgets/ receipts/ house/ travel/ personal/ notes/ ... projects/ projectA/ docs/ invoices/ contracts/ proposals/ presentations/ ... bin/ src/ repoA/ ... archive/ - old data people/ johndoe/ - sent to me by someone else YYYYMMDD/ ... ... ... projectN/ crap/ - Junk organized by date YYYYMMDD/ ...
jhildings 11y ago
I put most of the things i download on the desktop, and when it's to cluttered i create a folder like "downloads2" and repeat until the "downloads3" is needed ;D
- _mgr 11y ago
  I started cleaning my act up after finding "shit to sort" inside a "shit to sort" folder, which was nested under another "shit to sort" folder. I remember also seeing another "shit to sort ACTUALLY THIS TIME!!!" folder within there somewhere.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

12 points by networked 11y ago

Your projects, repositories, documents, media and other data files — what does the directory hierarchy that holds them look like? How did you come up with it?

kalzium 11y ago

I'm really horrible at this. As neat as I keep my git repos, I'm a chaotic keeping my disk organized. My desktop started to regularly get crowded with files since I had a computer with an OS that made that possible. Still move everything to "Stuff" whenever it gets too crowded and I don't want to make the decision yet whether I should delete this particular file or not. At least I have a "Code", "Git" and "Stuff" folder now.

zhte415 11y ago

Corporate (banking) - across multiple departments and users - but I'd like to share: Bucket |- filename1 |- filename2 |- filename3 |- filename4 |- filename5 |- ... I'm not joking. This is because I worked in an organisation where directory structures and silo'd access across each department were removed, and everything got thrown into a pool of documents with files that needed to be correctly names, and attached meta data filled out. Most people hated it. But I loved it, because it brought a discipline of accurate filenames and attaching correct meta-data. It brought strong disciplines on security/permissions. It brought an audit trail of who had opened or edited what and when. Whenever I see a department of a company with endless directory upon directory of files with data replicated across them, I know the department has big people trouble - stuff is being done manually and operational controls are weak. Like seeing Excel sheets with merged cells = non-normalised tables that cannot be pivot-tabled = staff don't know basic Excel functionality = stuff is being done manually, time wasted, effort duplicated. Everything was accessed by search. This also brought strong levels of discovery: Formerly, a document in another department could have been useful to me, but I'd not know of its existence unless I'd caught wind of someone working on this problem before. Now, with correct permissioning, I would see it through search. This saved incredible amounts of time. I also know that what I wrote 10 years ago isn't stuck in a directory that no one knows exists, it is at the fingertips of anyone who needs it.

zhte415 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jcoffland 11y ago

My home directory looks something like this: bin/ - scripts I use build/ - software I build doc/ biz/ taxes/ YYYY/ ... budgets/ receipts/ house/ travel/ personal/ notes/ ... projects/ projectA/ docs/ invoices/ contracts/ proposals/ presentations/ ... bin/ src/ repoA/ ... archive/ - old data people/ johndoe/ - sent to me by someone else YYYYMMDD/ ... ... ... projectN/ crap/ - Junk organized by date YYYYMMDD/ ...

jhildings 11y ago

I put most of the things i download on the desktop, and when it's to cluttered i create a folder like "downloads2" and repeat until the "downloads3" is needed ;D

_mgr 11y ago
I started cleaning my act up after finding "shit to sort" inside a "shit to sort" folder, which was nested under another "shit to sort" folder. I remember also seeing another "shit to sort ACTUALLY THIS TIME!!!" folder within there somewhere.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]