NOAH’S ARCHIVE: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Sadly, the problem is that the files went into the ark two by two. This is the tale of the duplication of effort of the duplication of effort of the duplication of effort. (Featuring a few more layers of duplication I will pretend to ignore.)
   How many copies of files are there? I create files. And I back those up to a portable hard drive. Hell, I have two of those damned things. I’m writing this in a Word file that generates a Backup file on saving.
   Two files for this report. And then there are copies to the portable hard drive. I still have copies of discs packed with files from the time before I bought a portable hard drive. And my old computer, sitting on a shelf, has copies of everything as well. Up to a point – though that is true of all forms of storage.
   Accidentally, I created a file folder one year ahead. But that way…madness lies. Once was enough for me, and I’ve stopped all that silliness. Where does storage stop? It never stops. Storage flows to the shore, becomes a sea and grows to oceanic size.
   I store stuff on the CLOUD. And I possess paper printouts, here, there. I keep it all in my head, too. There are load of copies. Of copies. And it is time, high-time, I weeded out the duplicates. I am clearing out the loft.
   This is relevant.
   Things take up space. That’s the science part. An appliance arrives in a box. Keep the box. At least until the guarantee is done. A few weeks ago I was in the position of ditching an appliance.
   In the wake of its departure, I checked around. There, in the loft, sat the box. Cardboard is easy enough to recycle. I recycled that cardboard. It took a trip into the loft to find that cardboard and recognise the need to ditch the material.
   The original useful item left. Then the cardboard went.
   I should apply the lofty rule to files. Treat the computer files the way I’d treat boxes in the loft. Let us turn to the noted sage of the age, Cher, who believes that if it doesn’t matter in five years then…it doesn’t matter. This is not true. I hang on, with gritty determination, to official government records.
   For very good reasons. Those government fuckers will come and ask you about shit from six years ago. Okay. If it doesn’t matter in five years then…it doesn’t matter, except to government, so keep certain items for eternity plus a day, just to be sure.
   Beyond all that, if you don’t have the machine then there is very little reason to keep the box. Unless the box is handy for storage, I guess. In this case, the box wasn’t great for storage. But it was ideal for recycling. And so…
   In deciding on duplicate files to keep, I must now consider the appliance and the box it came in. Pondering on the relevance of files is always tricky. I’ve yet to lose data. As stated before, I’ve never shredded the wrong document.
   My shredder sits on another floor, giving me time to consider what the hell it is I hope to shred. Dead paper walking. No last-second reprieve? Now that I think about it on the march to the scaffold…never had to reprieve a document bound for the shredder.
   On occasion, I’ve had to toil like blazes to get a piece of paper through the shredder’s maw. Fear of deleting the wrong file. Not much of a fear, given all the duplicates sitting there. We are in the year’s deep end as I type. Awash with rain and darkness. And it is time to compile the archive of archives.
   The last backup of the year. Unless I do another. And I suspect I will do another. Yes, I look at what I copy over to the reserve hard drive. When burning DVD to store information, I had file folders organised by disc capacity.
   This large category in a large folder fits on a large DVD.
   I switched to the bonus hard drive and abandoned my filing size-limitation. Away with TOPIC FOLDER 1 and TOPIC FOLDER 2. Hello FOLDER about a TOPIC. It doesn’t matter a bit, with the abandonment of discs. There’s a terabyte of information on the computer, and I can store four times that on the backup device.
   This has been the order of things for ages. I’m just going over the non-dusty history of it all, one more time. Yes, I’ve blogged about storing data before. So this blog post is a duplicate. If there’s dust, it is digital.
   File storage. Talked about that before. What’s different, now? More last-second reorganisation. Staring at files, by year, and seeing the same files. Or possibly the same files. Going through folders for this year, that year, I see I created a file marked PLANNING. And that file appeared in folders across three years.
   I added the year to the title of each file, to avoid file conflict, and then placed them all in one large folder. Then I read those files. Yes. Same file. Moved along one year at a time. Throwing a huge number of files and folders into one vast archival folder allows me to see the duplication of effort.
   Yes, it’s tinkering with the arrangement. Been there before, done that before, blogged about I am sure. The task was to house everything under one roof, and to leave the files themselves telling me, at a glance, which year they are from.
   This one roof now houses 53 folders. I’m talking about fiction here, and not the YouTube stuff with endless video files to deal with. Those are, wisely, still arranged by year in their own fiefdoms. The finished videos could be stored anywhere and moved at the drop of a file. But the projects that created those videos follow certain file paths the way some follow religions. Time-worn steps and haunted cloisters must remain in place, else chaos reign.
   When it comes to the fiction, those 53 folders can become three folders. Or a hundred. As long as they are useful to me, providing a record of what’s been done and what’s in the planning stages, folders for fictional works are easy to chop and change. I could have one folder to rule them all if I wanted things that way.
   Okay, I still want one button on the computer that lets me do everything. It also lets me undo everything. But, damn it, no, that button doesn’t exist. You have to go in, manually, and corral these files with posts and wire and warning signs.
   The best example of wrestling files into the field? Two folders were too unwieldy to transfer to the backup drive. Folders inside folders inside folders, all with lengthy names – not of my creation – ended up on the machine. And they were fine on the machine. The computer accepted those files.
   But those folders were stopped at the border. Too long. Go back in and shorten those folders. The first thing you do? Note the names of those folders and discover the exact locations of those folders.
   This folder is trespassing. You might want to shorten it. Here’s the name of it. But we are in the middle of a transfer of data, and we want to press on. FUCK. I’d better write this one down and get back to it.
   Luckily, that nonsense usually happens near the end of the transfer. Less hassle. There’d be even less hassle if I just had one button to handle everything. Where does the overall archive stand? Whole categories remain unchanged. Small folders with physical addresses in them. The Christmas Card List doesn’t change much from year to year…
   I have a system within the file itself. A green circle sits over each address, blocking it. When a card comes in, I move the circle aside to reveal the full address and then I respond. There’s a backup of the file. And a copy. The file changes over the month of December, it’s true. Then I reset the file when festivities end. This is a reminder that you must check the innards of duplicate files before you tamper with them.
   The PLANNING files were easy targets. They were short and simple. I read one and I’d read them all. Suddenly, there was only one. (Plus its inevitable backup.) Other duplicate files are tricky.
   Here are two files with different dates attached to them in the metadata. And the file sizes are different. They were last modified in different months of the same year. Then it’s off you go to pore over these with a digital magnifying glass. Until you find a third file. Dimly, a story emerges about why this file was set up three times over BEFORE you made backup copies.
   Now I must decide if anything older than five years needs to go. I also have to consider everything within the past five years. Most material stays relevant for a long time. That’s why it is all in the archive in the first place.
   I am staring at the statistics. The archive houses just over 8,000 folders and more than a quarter of a million files. Writing. Videos. Audio clips. Images. Backup files. Blogging takes up over 5,000 files – though the rate of file generation slowed down when I stopped storing finished blog entries on the computer. Instead, published blogs are automatically duplicated to my e-mail.
   How many files do I need? Does it matter if there’s duplication of stuff I’ll never look at again? If it matters after five years, I guess it’s still there lying inert in the digital dust. Needless duplication of duplication could lead to awkward errors. I try to stay on top of that when it comes to writing letters, penning fiction, or scribbling digital notes. Always go with the freshest version of the duplicate file when editing, and keep cloned duplicates separate from the real robots.
   Now I’ll end this blog post. Saving it automatically generates a backup. Placing it on the blog creates another copy. (Which, annoyingly, I then must format. Damn you, Blogger.) And once the blog post unfurls before the world, I’ll receive an e-mail copy. Yet the important thing is to copy the Word file over to the backup hard drive. And to aim for whatever version of CLOUD storage I use…in case of fire.
   The last thing on my mind, fleeing from a burning building, will be the need to grab a portable hard drive. There are duplicates on duplicates on duplicates. But, when it comes to fire, and buildings, there isn’t a duplicate copy of me. Your filing priority is always to survive a fire. There’s no backup for that.