I have a messy drawer where I dump all of this stuff. It’s basically write-only, once I throw something in there I know I’ll never look for it again. For digital stuff it’s mostly the same idea. If it’s email (which is almost always the case), I archive and forget about it. If it’s something else, I’ll throw it in my virtual “messy drawer” which is just a folder in Google Drive. You are getting quite a few clever ide…
Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
31–40 of 141 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#32So, in the end, I just keep them in the Documents directory. Some, most commonly used are also in my email. That's it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#33I've been doing the data storage tango for thirty years now, and the one constant is that everything requires maintenance or has to be moved to a different platform and software eventually. Today, everything is in Google Drive and Google Photos; about 600 GB worth of data and media. Maintenance consists of an annual Takeout ordeal with copies going on two different removable drives, one of which is stored in a so-cal…
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#34In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing. https://www.izimi.be/en/
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#35Important digital files are all on our family computer which is backed up to a cloud service which will mail me a disk to do a restore if needed. This includes all our photos and videos from since we've had digital cameras. If both my wife and I both die, no one will have any clue how to deal with this and that's OK.
Photos we really like are printed and in photo albums organized by date. We'll lose these in a house fire and that's a risk we're willing to accept. The ability to easily pull a physical album and see pictures from a past time grouped together and curated is something we really like.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#36Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#37In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing. https://www.izimi.be/en/
In Germany we have government entities that are unable/refusing to accept anything but Mail in forms or fax as an official communication channel :/ I’m jealous over countries that have such well designed systems in place to make things easy for their citizens
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#38In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing. https://www.izimi.be/en/
Interesting. TIL
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Germany we have government entities that are unable/refusing to accept anything but Mail in forms or fax as an official communication channel :/ I’m jealous over countries that have such well designed systems in place to make things easy for their citizens
In Germany, the government entities also rarely, if ever, communicate with each other. I'm offered a citizenship and while I'm extremely grateful and even considering the fact that Germany is the country I love the most by a huge margin, I couldn't bring myself to start gathering the documents they need from various government offices. It's been many years, I wonder if I'll get on with it sometime in the future.
I haven’t had to deal with that bureaucratic processes, but if I extrapolate the awful experiences I had with something as simple as a new ID, I can fully understand why people hate this kind of organization.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?
#40Most recent years all letters are however photographed on a phone and put into relevant shared photoalbums, then shredded. Albums by year and category e.g. "School docs", "Kids School work", "kids art", bills, statements, manuals and instructions, receipts, etc. Still have a big chore to go through all the old folders to scan and shred so we can really be paperless.
A few times I have had to dig out old bank statements or proof of address on a recent bill. However they all just wanted a photo of it, so storing it digitally was fine.