Tag: Harddrive

Digital Declutter – March and April!

I know I’m a bit late to the party, posting my March sum-up being we’re in May and all… but here it is anyways šŸ˜‰

As my shoulder wouldn’t allow me much time on the computer since the last March update, there isn’t really all that much to tell. So this one will be short and sweet šŸ˜‰

E-mails:
Even thoughĀ March decluttering was mostly about cleaning up my hard-drives.Ā I couldn’t quite leave the e-mails alone šŸ™‚

05.03.18 ā€“ 26.03.18 ā€“ Outlook file no 13 ā€“ From 10228 to 0 = 10228.

10 228Ā deleted e-mailsĀ ā€“ minus the emails that have ended up ā€œpermanentlyā€ in File no 1 (yeah, you have to read February’s update for this) which are 1527Ā added e-mails.Ā  That makes March/April =Ā 8 701Ā decluttered e-mailsĀ 

Hard-drive declutter:
Since my mid March update, I haven’t done much on the hard-drives either. You might remember I started out with aboutĀ 1,001,766 files and 2,20 TB of data!

Today this is what my hard’drive is at:Ā Ā 

Thatā€™ s 620 GB and 339 140 files deleted so farĀ šŸ™‚Ā Still way’s to go – but it’s gonna have to wait for a while.

Adding it up with this years total and we get:

Bookmarks ā€“ 1625
E-mails ā€“ 44 496
Files – 339 140 (620 GB)

That should make the total so far this year = 385 261 digital ā€œitems out-the-doorā€.Ā 

Yup, that’s it for this time.. told you it would be short šŸ˜‰

Data Devices galore!

As you all know – or at least some of you know – I’m working my way through my digital life.

After having deletedĀ 35 360 e-mails in February, I decided to put the e-mail decluttering on hold for the month of March.

At the beginning of the year I wrote a little piece about ALL the data I have šŸ˜¦ Stored on 8 external hard driveā€™s, 11 memory sticks, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, computers etc.

Since a lot of the data are backups and backups of backups… I know a lot of the information is the same.

I needed a game plan:Ā So I decided to put most of the data onto one hard drive. I’m thinking that this might make it easier to consolidate and find duplicates.

And this is what I did earlier this month. I consolidated data from all my memory sticks, 6 of my external hard drives + my Dropbox and iCloud photo storage.

This is what I ended up with – one drive with:

Oh boy! That’s 1,001,766 files and 2,20 TB of data – and that isn’t even everything!!!! I think I need to lie down :-/

You might notice I only consolidated 6 out of 8 hard drives.. the reason?

  • One of the extra hard drive which has about 201 774 files and 95 Gb of data – will in it’s entirely be deleted – so no reason to add it to everything else šŸ˜‰
  • The other one has my 2 computers Factory Resets + Image backup from when I installed windows 10. So these files will stay… this is non generational as I will need them if anything (God forbid) should happen to my computers.

Over the last couple of weeks.. Iv’e been chugging along, deleting a little here and there… and I’m currently at:

That’ s 600 GB and 330 748 files deleted so far šŸ™‚ But as you can see.. I have a long way yet to go, before I’m done (sad face).

At this pace it might be months before I’m done.. but hey! This is my ONE big project this year, to get my digital life somewhat in check šŸ˜‰

How are you dealing with your digital life?

It’s time…

You are the cutest little thing, and I love you dearly. You have served me well over the years, and I’m really sorry, my “little red one”, I think it’s time…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article “I’ve got my weekend cut out forĀ me“,Ā about setting up a computer, and some of the work involved in moving from an old to a new. Ā That weekend I spent my time swapping over from a computer I had borrowed, so I could get it out the door šŸ™‚

Today (and the next days) it’s time to tackle my cute little red 13,3” laptop!

Copy everything off the old and start the hard work of sorting out what to put on the new. I’ll pretty much be following the same procedure I wrote about last time.

So far I have moved about 56 GB of data, and it’s still going strong. Turns out there is loads of photos, videos, oh yeah, and music…

I already have backups of most, but for the job at hand – I’m copying everything to a separate folder on the external hard-drive, just in case.

I can see my next task, of sorting my external hard-drives, looming in the horizon šŸ˜‰ I’ll be needing at least a month, at some later time, sorting out my external hard-drives (I have several). I have to consolidate my backups and make sure I don’t have a zillion copies of everything. But, that’s another task, for another day šŸ˜‰

So what am I doing with my “little red one” when I’m done? Well…

I could clean it up! It might be useful as a backup (if I could make it work properly) but it’s 7 years old, and setting it up with the latest updates and drivers, would take a bit of time.

Or, I could send it out-the-door as an items in my decluttered pile.

I haven’t really made up my mind yet, it’s a cute little computer, I really like it, and it’s hard to part with šŸ˜‰

I might keep it a little longer, until I’m sure my new one works the way I want it to. I’ll let you know when I’ve had a think about it, and by the rate the backup is going… I have several days to mull it over šŸ˜‰

I’ve got my weekend cut out for me.

You know how sometimes to get rid of one item, you need to do a lot off work first. Today’s item falls into that category.

I got a new laptop computer for Christmas. My old one do not function properly any more. In addition since I’m the designated computer help for my mum and step-mum, I need one that works. So what does this have to do with decluttering you might ask.

If any of you have ever changed over from one computer to another, you probably know there is some work involved. Like transferring stuff between the computers. That takes time. Well today I’m going to throw one more computer into this mix.

In addition to my old worn out one, I’ve borrowed a computer for one specific task that needed to be done a while ago. And that’s the computer I will “clean” out of my house during this weekend. My old one I will have to get back to after I’m done with this one šŸ˜‰

This weekends’s task is – transfer my installed SW and documents from the borrowed computer to my new one. Clean up the borrowed one and get it out of the house. I know, it doesn’t sound much.. but I can promise you, it’s a bit of work, especially since it’s also two different operating systems and I might have to change some stuff around to make everything works as intended.

How do I go about this?Ā 

I do a little preparation first:

  • I move all documents I want to keep so they are located in under the “My documents” folder structure
  • I make sure all my pictures, videos, music are located in their respective “My Pictures/Music/Video” folders. You’ll find all these under “Windows explorer/Desktop/Libraries….”
  • I put all downloaded software (SW) files into my “Downloads” folder
  • I go through the Start/All programs overview and write down the SW programs I use that I need, to make sure I install these on the new computer
  • If I use outlook or any other mail program that downloads the mails to the computer, I make sure I have a copy of the e-mail file, and the address book, so I can import it onto the new one
  • I make a copy of my “Favorites” folder, so I don’t have to recreate this later
  • When I have everything sorted and I’m sure I have everything I need, I use an external hard-drive as my transferring media. I use this type of transfer media because I think it’s easy. It gives me a copy of everything just in case. And it means I can choose what to install on the new one right now, and I still have everything on a drive, should I need it later.
  • When I’ve gotten a copy of everything I want to keep, on my external hard-drive, then I’m ready and

I start the work on my new one.Ā 

  • Depending on how much space is available on my new computer, I transfer the most important stuff from the external hard-drive I just copied everything on to. I put the copied files into a similar folder structure to where I saved them (Documents/Pictures/Music etc.)
  • I install the programs I need, hopefully I can use the SW I already have, if not I try finding updates online.
  • After installation, I activate whatever needs to be activated, so that I can use the programs I’ve installed.
  • I add the old “Favorites” to the new “Favorites” folder
  • I set up my new email program and import my old emails and address book
  • Then, if there is any bits an pieces left that needs sorting. I’ll do this

And then I’m ready to go…. I hope!

As you can see.. there is a few things to do. So, I better get started šŸ˜‰

Wish me luck will you…