The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/ReclusiveEagle on 2024-08-05 09:06:09.
So just as a general question, is there a better way to store or link related files and data together on Windows?
For example, lets say I have 2 folders.
- iPhone Photos
- Trips
The iPhone Photos folder will obviously store the photos taken with my phone. The Trips folder will store all photos, videos, text files, anything related to a specific trip. Lets say I go to America.
So the question becomes:
- Do I only store iPhone Photos from America in the iPhone Photos folder?
- Do I only store iPhone Photos from America in the Trips folder?
- Do I duplicate iPhone Photos from America and add them to both folders?
Is there no better way to store data? SQL has relational databases, so you can link Customers to Rooms for example. Or for programs like Notion, Obsidain, Tiddlywiki, or any other markdown based document renderer, you can link multiple text documents together, regardless of where they are stored, and intelligently update all existing links if a file or folder is moved or renamed . Is there a way to do this with files and data on a hard drive?
Why do folders need to be exclusive? And if you want to link data you just have to duplicate it or do something archaic like create a folder shortcut to link folders. But now you have to attempt to remember how many shortcuts there are, where they go, can certain data be linked to another folder? does a new folder link to old data?
Is there a way for me to associate iPhone Photos taken in America to my Trips folder without duplicating images? Or any better way to store data on a hard drive?
This is just a basic example but imagine if you had 1TB of data and a lot of the data could be related to other data in a way that's not simply "This thing is exactly like these other things, so store them only here".
The solution should also not be exclusively related to one file type. Obviously in this example I could create a Lightroom database and have iPhone Photos be tagged to America Trip and just search for the keywords or tags related to that trip. But then I'd only find images related to the trip and no other documents. I'd also be reliant on paying Adobe \Insert per month] just to maintain the database.)
Is there no way to organize and store data to do this natively with all file types and data?