Storage, backup, and file names (movies and tv)

[DirtRider]

I'm wondering what you guys may be doing as far as backing up and storing your movies and such is concerned. Looking for some feedback as to how best to name and organize massive amount of data before I go about doing this. Also, some devices that I would stream to in the house need to be converted to other formats. So I would like to keep them in other formats besides the original as well. I want to be able to add storage space as I need it and hopefully not need to move stuff all over the place to keep it organized and be able to find things.

First issue is file/folder name. I'd like to have all the info on the folder so it is easily seen when browsing through any media streaming device. I was just going to put folders for each movie at the root level. So I was thinking of including name, quality (720p/1080p), format (blu ray, avi, etc). An example would be "The Who - Live at Kilburn (1977) [2009] [720p] [x264]" or "Vertical Limit [2000] [1080p] [x264]". Anything else I should include or other ideas?

Assume I will just start with a couple external hard drives. I only want to buy drives as I need them since storage prices quickly drop. In time this could grow to a rack server. If I simply put movies on the drives alphabetically then when I run out of space I need to move many files from the first drive to the second and so on. So for instance if I start with 2 drives and the first contains movies a-m and then the second n-z and I am totally full then I add a third drive and have to move stuff from the second drive to the third and from the first to the second. So as you can see this is very tedious and exponential when adding more drives. However at least it would remain organized and I'd be able to find things easily. Anyone know of a good catalog system or have a better idea?

There are a lot of other issues that could be discussed about this and I welcome those comments too but this is enough for me to start with. Thanks.

[setarip_old]

Hi! So for instance if I start with 2 drives and the first contains movies a-m and then the second n-z and I am totally full then I add a third drive and have to move stuff from the second drive to the third and from the first to the second.Naah. Just create an Excel spreadsheet listing ALL of your video files, with a column for each descriptive item you may want to separately identify, PLUS:

1) A column for "Drive Location" - This eliminates the need to shift videos from one drive to another

2) Title

3) Date Acquired

Using Excel's sorting ability, you can then sort based on ANY category and readily locate the video you want...

[TinTime]

My situation's simpler than yours in that I only use one HTPC to play stuff on. I'm not streaming different formats to different devices around the house. It might give you a couple of ideas though.

I was thinking about building a server to store all my media on and sticking it in another room but I changed my mind and bought one of these (http://icydock.eu/en/pages/products/external_cases.php?we_objectID=5667) for my HTPC instead.

There are several advantages for me over a server:

It's much cheaper :)
As and when I need more storage I just buy another drive. I can do this indefinitely - I'm never going to run out of physical room in a case.
It doesn't use much power.


The disadvantages would be:

I don't have an always-on repository of everything available for any device that wants to connect to it.
I can't set up any kind of RAID backup system. I suppose I could buy another dock, buy my hard drives in pairs and mirror them but it's not exactly as convenient as having a server with RAID 5.
I might damage a drive one day between me getting it out of the cupboard and plugging it in to the dock.


In terms of organisation I did it much along the lines mentioned by setarip_old.

Each drive has two folders on it - "Films" and "TV". Under these I then have a folder with each film or TV show name containing all the relevant files.

Additionally each drive is numbered on its case with a permanent marker, and this number is used as the name of an empty file ("1.txt" for drive number 1 and so on) that sits alongside the "Films" and "TV" folders on the drive.

Finally I wrote a batch script which reads all the folder names and the drive number from the empty file, producing two text files of film and TV titles for the current drive. It then sorts these together with the text files from my other drives to produce two master text files (films.txt and tv.txt) containing all the titles in alphabetical order along with the drive number they're stored on.

[7ekno]

RocketRAID 3520, then add 1.5 or 2TB HDDs to a RAID5 array as required ... Far more simple than having to constantly swap HDDs ...

As for constant conversion for other devices, just run streaming software like TVersity that will convert on the fly for you (taking up no extra storage) ...

7ek