I have a folder for each album, and a folder for ideas in progress.  Any external artist would have a folder.
 
I don't use Years because honestly that would not help me find anything.  I wouldn't remember which year something was started.

Harddrive is divided into several partitions with each partition holding one genre and labeled as such. Within that genre partition, each project (song) has it's own folder. Within that folder resides the cwp, wav, mp3, and txt files associated with it. It also contains it's very own Audio folder and "Ideas" folder for storing recorded ideas. This way everything associated with a song is in one place.
 
There is also a "main" partition for general files and info on software and hardware used in the studio. Each partition is 100GB.
 
HDD
[partition 1] MAIN (T:)
>Studio
>Equipment
>Albums
>Archives
>Programs
>Downloads
>Samples
>SF Banks
>Sonar (installation & downloaded files)
>etc.
 
[partition 2] C&W (U:)
>Song 1
  >Audio
  >Ideas
>Song 2
  >Audio
  >Ideas
>etc.
 
[partition 3] ROCK (V:)
>Song 1
  >Audio
  >Ideas
>Song 2
  >Audio
  >Ideas
>etc.
 
This HDD resides inside a laptop which goes wherever I go. I also keep a duplicate copy on a 2nd drive for backup.

I'm curious why you create partitions for the different genres instead of creating folders for different genres. Does it have anything to do with technical reasons like block size, or you just happen to prefer that kind of organization?

It just helps to keep things simple and efficient for me & the computer. The HD is data exclusive to the DAW. It's like each category has it's own HD which makes the OS find things faster since windows likes to spread file bits all over the place. It also makes it easier for me to navigate through projects and defragging is more efficient. Defragging is almost never needed in this case. Also, should one partition go crappy-wappy I've not lost the whole shebang.
 
There's also a CACHE partition where global Audio Data & Picture Cache files reside. This makes it easier to clean & keeps the OS drive free of expanding clutter.

Really very sorry to hear your sad he's Bitflipper...

I'm sure your new rig will be great, but I'm sad at all the lost music and years of work.

I'll be hoping something really good is about to happen for you to counter balance this tragedy!

Thanks, Keni. Yeh, maybe those lotto investments are about to pay off.

soens
It just helps to keep things simple and efficient for me & the computer. The HD is data exclusive to the DAW. It's like each category has it's own HD which makes the OS find things faster since windows likes to spread file bits all over the place. It also makes it easier for me to navigate through projects and defragging is more efficient. Defragging is almost never needed in this case. Also, should one partition go crappy-wappy I've not lost the whole shebang.
 
There's also a CACHE partition where global Audio Data & Picture Cache files reside. This makes it easier to clean & keeps the OS drive free of expanding clutter.

Thank you for the detailed response, that makes a lot of sense. This thread has been really helpful to me.

soens
There's also a CACHE partition where global Audio Data & Picture Cache files reside. This makes it easier to clean & keeps the OS drive free of expanding clutter.

 
That seems like a good idea. On our family computer I used to have a dedicated partition for Temporary Internet Files for similar reasons, i.e. expanding clutter and wild fragmentation. It was not on the same physical drive as the o/s.

I actually put the OS on one drive or partion and the Documents folder on another. Same reasoning as for the DAW. I've just done it that way ever since I started building my own systems years ago.

bitflipper
Thanks, Keni. Yeh, maybe those lotto investments are about to pay off.

Yikes! It's one thing when thieves break in and take yer money. But now yer jest givin' it to 'em.