Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 141 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#31
post #18

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…

Does the analysis change for you if you consider the difficulty of wrangling the important stuff for someone else in your family, should something untimely happen to you?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#32
Having built complicated storage systems during work hours I had a strong urge to build a home NAS. What stops me is that I have this Documents directory on my laptop, which was salvaged from another disk that failed about three years ago, and served for 11 years prior to that, and some documents were copied to it from a PC I owned before then... and going farther back doesn't really make sense as none of the documents would be really relevant / authorities at the time couldn't deal with digital copies of documents, so, storing them made no sense.

So, 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”?

#33

I'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…

Where do you guys live to need to store birth certificate in a fireproof bag? I can just login into my government website with a digital identity provider and print one legally valid copy any time. Same for any identity related certificate.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#34

In 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/

A legal and secure dead man's switch?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#35
Really important documents are paper and stored in a filing cabinet into labeled folders. Every so often we go through these and discard the papers we no longer need (old tax records beyond 7 years, utility bills more than 6 months old, etc). If our house burns down or floods badly, we'll potentially lose these documents, and that's a risk we're willing to accept. Pretty much all of these documents are actually replaceable with effort, time, and a little money. I can get new notarized copies of birth certificates, old tax documents, will, passports, etc if I really need to but it would be quite annoying. The risk of losing them and the annoyance even each other out, it's a very small risk. If I die, no one needs to know how to use a computer in order to access my will, taxes, etc.

Important 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”?

#37
post #21

In 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

Same. I was unaware that Belgium or India have such systems and often wished for them to exist in Germany, but thought that it was impossible for privacy reasons in the EU. Now it's clear that it's just incompetence or lack of funds or vision in Germany.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#38

In 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

Indeed. Government-provided digital services can be a good experience. There is a lot of initiative in the US to improve the sprawling and incoherent experience. As an example, on the IRS website you can access your personal information (returns, all submitted tax info from various sources) going back for several years. As far as I'm aware this is a newer service.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#39
post #21

Earlier 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 can’t even start to imagine the annoyance that people have to go trough when they need something really important, like a citizenship or a visa.

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”?

#40
For me and now by extension the missus and kids: An organised chaos of diverse storage, for docs and photos. On a NAS, Google Docs, Dropbox, Flickr, variuos other local photo apps now offline (coppermine etc). All newer photos are on icloud though also backed up offline. A lot of older paper documents in physical folders, some organised but most just bungled together. Old physical photos are hopefully somewhere in the attic.

Most 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.

Post reply on HN