Today I decided that it was time to declutter and re-organise the vast amount of digital information that has collected on my laptop and backup hard-drives over the last 12 months. My laptop’s SSD was filled to the virtual-brim and my small collection of external hard-drives had begun to lose consistency and start becoming cluttered and messy.
I decided to clear most of my old (and completed) video/photo work off my laptop and instead keep 2 backups on separate hard-drives. This freed up over 100gb’s and will give me a lot more room to store newer footage and projects for Film 3. I also allocated one hard-drive as a specific ‘media drive’, and currently I am copying over hundreds of GB’s worth of film and photographic work.
Everything has also been backed up to older hard-drives and I’ll keep those as ‘last resort’ backups. It’s surprising how much this re-organising clears the mind – and it also allows for a neater, more efficient working environment. For this reason I try to regularly maintain my digital files, as I think a cluttered desktop limits effective work and creativity (just as cluttered desk in real life does).
As a media practitioner, it is crucial to develop good storage habits now, while my work isn’t as important as it will be when working for clients or on bigger, commercial projects. I think I’ve developed a good file structure now, and I just need to keep it neat so that I can keep my computer and film projects organised.