External Hard Drive organization

kristalund

kristalund

Sweet Shoppe SugarBabe
Right now my Ext HDs are "organized" by year but I am considering reorganizing by:

Project Life Albums
Photos by year
Photos- Family Members
December Daily digital albums and supplies
Vacations
Sports -Jase
soccer- Em
School- Kids
Digital Supplies
Digital Layouts

Does anyone do anything like this?
 
organizing my hard drives is the most annoying thing. I need to complete redo especially my scrapbook section. I can't find a thing.
 
On one hard drive I have:

COMMERCIAL USE
YOUTUBE graphics and videos
COMPLETED LAYOUTS IN PSD FORMAT, IN FOLDERS BY YEAR (I save my layouts with a filename that includes the people in the photos as well as the date of the photos. I use Lightroom to see all the layouts for a single person or family member)

On another I have:

FIDDLE-DEE-DEE DESIGNS with my products
PHOTOS in folders by year (again, I use Lightroom but this time I use keywords to see all photos of a specific person, event, travel, holidays, etc.)
SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES, divided by designer
 
My EHD's mirror my D: drive on my computer:

Main Folders:
Canon Downloads
Digital Layouts
DSKMU (digital scrap kits most used)
Images 1
Images 2
Images 3
Images 4

Canon folder is where all photos are downloaded. When I got my 1st Canon camera, I set it to download to folders with the naming convention of YYYY_MM_DD. I still do that. I try to have no more than 2 years in this folder. They then get moved to the Images 3 folder. I set up a folder for each year, with a sub-folder for each month (i.e. 201401Jan, 201402Feb etc). Then the daily folders get moved to the month folder.
Images 2 has all of my scanned photos within folder names by year/event.
Images 1 and 4 are miscellaneous photos.

As for the layouts folder. I have 3 sub-folders: 600x600, Layouts, and PSP Layout Files. Each of these sub-folders is set up with the same sub-folders. I am a theme scrapper so all my folders are by theme, i.e. 2024 DYD, 2024 Oct Daily, Book of Me, Dogs, Family etc. The Family folder has sub-folders as well. When I scrap, I keep the pspimage (layered file) in that folder. The 3600x3600 jpg file in the Layouts folder and 600x600 jpg files in the folder for them.

I have moved some of the theme folders off of the D: Drive and they are on 2 separate EHD's. Basically those are older themes that I no longer have anything to scrap.

I do have a Vacations folder which has layouts for all of my vacations where I had photos to scan. The layouts for a cruise I took in 2010 are in their own folder tucked away safely on the EHD's since it is all scrapped and printed. Since I have taken 4 vacations the last 2 years, I now have a specific sub-folder in the Vacations folder for them. i.e. 2024 Cape Cod, 2025 Canada, and 2025 South Dakota (forgot 2025 Vermont!) I also have a sub-folder for Disney in the Vacations folder that has all layouts from my 5 trips to DW and DL.

This all makes sense for me since like I said, I scrap by theme. If organizing by theme works for you, go ahead and do it!
 
ktanker said:
organizing my hard drives is the most annoying thing. I need to complete redo especially my scrapbook section. I can't find a thing.
Click to expand...

my supplies are spread out on many EHDs making it difficult to find anything. I started putting most used supplies, like white and kraft pp in iCloud.
 
HavaDrPepper said:
My EHD's mirror my D: drive on my computer:

Main Folders:
Canon Downloads
Digital Layouts
DSKMU (digital scrap kits most used)
Images 1
Images 2
Images 3
Images 4
Click to expand...

How big are your EHDs? I usually buy 1 or 2TB thinking if it becomes corrupt I am only using that amount.
 
I have 2 main EHDs - one for photos & one for supplies. They are each 5tb and are backed up with Backblaze (and other EHDs).

My photos EHD has:
01_photos > then folders for years > months > events (I store my TIF files in the folder where the original photo is. I name my layouts year-month_kitname_template this way, if I need to change something, or make a facing page I know what I used)
02_CT (this is where I keep what I'm working on weekly, my web files (don't ask me why I keep them... I have no clue!) and "need to scrap" ideas.
03_Ready to print > files for each kid > years

My supplies EHD has:
01_fonts
02_SSD
03_Lightroom presets (so they're easy to find!)
04_cutfiles
05_all other non-SSD supplies I've collected over the years

One of my big (VERY long-term) goals is to add metadata to each photo of who is in it, where it is or any story behind it. (Yeah, this *might* get done before I die :D )
 
kristalund said:
How big are your EHDs? I usually buy 1 or 2TB thinking if it becomes corrupt I am only using that amount.
Click to expand...

My EHD that is connected all the time and has everything on it including my documents folder is 5TB. So it has all my important documents as well as my scrapping stuff. My D: drive is 931GB and only has digi scrapping items on it, no programs. I have 336 GB free on it since I moved all the old stuff to the EHD's. I have 3 other EHD's: 1TB, 4TB and 5TB.

I have an online backup as well. I use iDrive.
 
craftytam said:
I have 2 main EHDs - one for photos & one for supplies. They are each 5tb and are backed up with Backblaze (and other EHDs).
Click to expand...

I use Backblaze and have one EHD backed up with them. So...they will back up multiple EHDs? Do you just swap them out every so often? If I haven't had my one plugged in for a while, Backblaze will remind me to do so to keep it backed up. I do have another EHD but I didn't know Backblaze could/would back it up, too. Do you know how many they can do? And are you using the same port on your computer for yours? I don't have enough ports on my laptop to have different EHDs with their own port.
 
SweetChar said:
I use Backblaze and have one EHD backed up with them. So...they will back up multiple EHDs? Do you just swap them out every so often? If I haven't had my one plugged in for a while, Backblaze will remind me to do so to keep it backed up. I do have another EHD but I didn't know Backblaze could/would back it up, too. Do you know how many they can do? And are you using the same port on your computer for yours? I don't have enough ports on my laptop to have different EHDs with their own port.
Click to expand...

They will back up multiple EHDs. I actually have 4 EHDs plus my computer drives. They are all in their own ports. I have USB hubs for when I use a laptop.
It's all backed up on Backblaze. I leave them all plugged in all the time.
 
SweetChar said:
I use Backblaze and have one EHD backed up with them. So...they will back up multiple EHDs? Do you just swap them out every so often? If I haven't had my one plugged in for a while, Backblaze will remind me to do so to keep it backed up. I do have another EHD but I didn't know Backblaze could/would back it up, too. Do you know how many they can do? And are you using the same port on your computer for yours? I don't have enough ports on my laptop to have different EHDs with their own port.
Click to expand...

As long as they have their own drive letter, they should back up just fine.

I have my EHD's set up so that when they get plugged in, they always have the same drive letter even if it is plugged into a different port. Don't remember how I did it though since it's been a couple years since I did it.
 
Photos by year, then by month in each year folder

Digital Supplies - Designer for the most part, I have some separated out

Digital Scrap Pages - Year, Month
There is an "other projects" in this folder that has my about me layouts and then each kid had their 18 years books that I put together for graduation. Keira's is the only competed, Cooper's almost there, he graduations in May. And Harper is only 13, but I just copy Cooper's pages, and swap pictures. LOL!

I do keep the current year out, so I have a 2025 scrapbook pages folder w/ months and a 2025 photos w/ the months.

My books are all chronological, except for maybe a huge vacation, like Disney or when we did Yellowstone, otherwise, I just wrap them all into everything.
 
I have a larger external hard drive and then a have a smaller portable external hard drive. The portable hard drive is always connected and is basically only for my scrapbook kits. I keep those divided by designer. On my larger external hard drive I have
another copy of my scrapbook folder,
a document folder
recipe folder
photo folder with many subfolders
Bible lesson folder
my Teachers Pay Teachers product folder
medical files folder
receipts folder
Pet folder
Our camper folder
Gift Ideas folder
Crochet Patterns folder
I also have Backblaze. Last night I was prompted to upload my photos to Amazon Prime Photos so I did that as well.
 
Last edited:
I have 2 -12 tb ehds. I used Backblaze for everything, and Amazon prime for photos as well.

My photos are organized by year, month and event/day/vacation. Photos are on both drives.

My scrapbooking has one folder for pages in progress or not yet printed. Once printed they move to a yearly folder or an event folder within that year. Pages are named year, month, day, event/name. I usually save the TIFF, jpeg for printing and the jpeg web file which the name usually includes the kit used.

Scrap kits are organized by designer. (i've thought about sorting them by theme.....)

Scrapbooking Commercial use items are are sorted in folders by item, flower, paper textures, paper pattern, etc.

I also have lots of other folders for my Cricut stuff, Embroidery, quilting, and teaching, etc.
 
I use the Photos app on my MacBook that syncs to my phone, and I sort by:

Folder - Year
Album - Month
Sub album - special events

For example, in 2025 I have:
2025-01
2025-02
2025-02 Kaitlyn birthday
2025-03
2025-03 Jelly Roll

Etc ...

I tag my photos with a keyword, and use the 'People' feature to tag faces so I can find things easily.


For my EHD, I keep my Layouts in one folder, then sub folders for:
JPEG / web
JPEG / Full size - to print
TIFF
Started pages (those that I've started but haven't completed)


For supplies, I follow Traci Reed's organization that was on the blog years ago. Templates are filed by the number of photo spots (I rename them to the pack name - designer so I know how to credit). The other supplies I organize by theme, or by main colour. I also use my Mac's 'tag' features to assign tags for each folder (with the year I bought it, and SSD tag, then also things like 'alpha', 'big photo', etc.
rxmWsRol.jpeg
 
kristalund said:
You are so organized!! What size is your EHD?
Click to expand...

I have a 2 TB EHD.

And organization is who I am as a person lol For my photos I'm the 'memory keeper' in our family, so whenver someone says "remember that photo ... " I type it in my phone and pull it up :).

Type A in almost everything (except my scrap style, I like to get messy there ... lol)
 
My EHDs are organized like this:

Layouts
>Years
>>Month-Title.jpg, etc. (so that they are in roughly chronological order for when I print)

Documents

Photos
>Years
>>Months
>>>Vacation subfolders when applicable

Product
>00-C2C (my December Daily supplies)
>>00-Pages and older DD supplies
>>>00-TIFFs and then yearly folders which contain the JPGs and any new DD supplies I haven't used + subfolders for all of my stories
>00-To Use with all of my unused kits
>Alphas (stand-alone/stash)
>Elements (stand-alone/stash)
>Kits (organized by designer)
>Papers (stand-alone/stash)
>PS Stuff (actions, styles, fonts, etc.)
>Templates
>>Themed + misc
>>>Celebrations
>>>>Birthdays, Graduations, Weddings
>>>Hobbies & Home
>>>>People
>>>Holidays
>>>>Easter, Halloween, NYE, Thanksgiving, VDay (Christmas templates are in with my DD supplies)
>>>Journaling
>>>Pop Culture (movies, TV shows, etc.)
>>>Seasonal
>>>>Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
>>>Travel
>To Make
>>Year
>>>Month-Activity subfolders
>>Kits + Pics
>>>subfolder with photos + kit to use
 
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