Warning: The following is woefully off topic and more or less just blathering as I formulate a data storage/management plan.
@scook (no need to read this really... just boring stuff I'm doing)
Awesome. I'd like to do it this week but I was perusing some of the stuff on my c drive and the actual cleanup is going to be quite a bit of work. Basically I have a rather silly habit of copying my download exe's from the Downloads folder (as opposed to cutting them) then pasting the to the desktop until I install them. Then I drop them into a special desktop folder for safe keeping (and easy external backup) so if I need to reinstall something I don't have to download again. Needless to say both the Downloads folder and the exe back up folder are rather huge at this point (it is basically every single program and library I've downloaded since I built the system over two years ago).
I thought I had been rather vigilant in my wacky little system but I see now that a) there are quite a few things still sitting in my downloads folder that I may not have installed (mostly freebies from Cake that I snagged while I had my account open to snag something else but didn't execute at the time) and b) I'm now realizing that everything in my special exe backup are the unzipped installers which are taking up more space than necessary. Sooooo I have to make some decisions and cross referencing in regards to what I already have installed and whether I should keep the unzipped installers or just the compressed exe's (I will likely choose the latter for obvious reasons). I also have storage choices to make. I realized recently that I have a pile of blank DVDs that I thought were defective but actually burnt a bootable Linux disc on one recently so I may use those for certain things and then my external drive for other stuff (which also desperately needs a serious cleanup).
That'll clean up about 40-80GB on my C drive. That's without all the crazy audio stuff which will be even nuttier because everything has been defaulting to C (even though I have a 1tb secondary drive lying mostly empty even though it itself is crudded up with a bunch of old system images and bulk storage much of which I don't need). So now that I know how to create backups of projects with PPF I can scour all the weird experiments I've done and get rid of any superfluous nonsense. Without touching my currently active projects or legitimate work I may want to revisit I should be able to clear another 40-80GB on the C drive that way and then send the rest of the project/audio files to the E drive where I actually want them.
I'm not running out of space on my C drive yet but considering how I am currently working it is going to fill up fast at this pace especially with my predisposition for doing a crapload of takes for each track to write, then another crapload to perfect.
I also still have about a hundred hours of old audio/video on my old system and various DVDs/CDs that needs to worm there way on there to so disk space is definitely a commodity. I can no longer allow things to be saved willy nilly wherever it may land if I'm to accomplish things without dropping cash I do not have on a ton of extra drives.
Dog help me if one fails.
I always sucked at understanding file management in Windows but it all makes much more sense to me now. I just have to deal with the mess my ignorance and perhaps exuberance has made then I can start pointing programs to the correct locations. The data paths are really all I'll need help with though. The rest is just tedious grunt work.
As far as the weather... my thermostat is telling me 88 but it is rather humid. Probably about 96 or so in reality but I've got the windows open (trying to ignore the weirdos outside) and the ceiling fans going (one of the awesome things about this place) so it's feeling alright at the moment. I usually just need to get through the first heat wave of the summer then I can handle the extremes. Surprisingly I think I'm already there after only a day and a half of these temps. Sure is a lot easier though than when I used to do construction outdoors in the middle of the summer... including roofing. Yikes!
Cheers.