Tell your git-annex stories here. Feel free to give as little or as much detail as appropriate about how you're using it. How's it working out for you?
See testimonials for some other stories.
Tell your git-annex stories here. Feel free to give as little or as much detail as appropriate about how you're using it. How's it working out for you?
See testimonials for some other stories.
git-annex is just amazing. I just started using it and for once, I have hope to be able to organize my files a little better than now.
Currently, I have a huge homedir. From time to time, I move file away in external hard drives, then forget about them. When I want to look at them back, I just can't because I have forgotten where they are. I have also a ton of files on those drives that I can't access because they are not indexed. With git-annex I have hope to put all of these files on a git repository. I will be able to see them everywhere, and find them when I need to.
I might stop loosing files for once.
I might avoid having multiple copies of the same things over and over again, without knowing so. and regain some more disk space.
For the moment, I'm archiving my photographs. But there is one thing that might not go very well: directory hierarchies where everything is important (file owner, specific permissions, symlinks). I won't just be able to blindly annex all of these files. But for the moment I'll stick at archiving ocuments and it should be amazing.
Mildred
Git-annex has really helped me with my media files. I have a big NAS drive where I keep all my music, tv, and movies files, each in their own git annex. I tend to keep the media that I want to watch or listen to on my laptop and then drop it when it is done. This way I don't have too much on my laptop at any one time, but I have a nice selection for when I'm traveling and don't have access to my NAS.
Additionally, I have a mp3 player that will format itself randomly every few months or so. I keep my podcasts on it in a git annex and in a git annex on my laptop. When I am done with a podcast, I can delete it from the mp3 player and then sync that information with my laptop. With this method, I have a backup of what should be on my mp3 player, so I don't need to worry about losing it all when the mp3 player decides it's had enough.
I've been using git-annex for a month or two to manage my music collection. It's great to know I can drop files if I need space on the laptop, knowing exactly where I have other copies. Now I'm writing an emacs mode to help me keep track: https://gitorious.org/emacs-contrib/annex-mode
Locally available files are colored differently, and pressing g runs
git annex geton the file at point.It's amazing how perfect git annex is for my use case.
I record music, which results in a bunch of big files that don't change, and a bunch of small files which change often.
I also need these files to be preserved for the long haul, and be verified now and then. They also need to be backed up three or four times, because they're original files! Keeping track of all that was a headache before git annex, and I was also constantly awake at night because it was impossible to verify if everything's still okay.
Now I just dump everything into my archive annex and I know where everything is, and that it's safe, period. I even set myself up a raspberry pi with a usb drive adapter and put some spindown code in a cron job. Now I have a hard drive at rest that I can access from anywhere at any time. The whole thing gets backed up by Amazon Glacier, but if Amazon starts getting pesky I can just add another backend and sync it up. I can even version my small files if I want to by putting them directly into git. This entire thing would have been such a huge undertaking but now it's easy. I dump everything into the annex and to the actual backups whenever I get round to it. It just has a natural flow to it.
Et voila. Professional grade backups, at home, independant from any specific vendor. I absolutely never have to worry about my files going anywhere, and if I get super paranoid, I can just "git annex fsck" and mathematically prove to myself everything's still there.
It's totally sad how many creative people will be losing their life's work in a couple of years because they rely on regular filesystems on their USB drives. Stuff like DropBox and SpiderOak is better than nothing but trusting single vendor to not screw up or mess with your life's work is just plain creepy.
I just have a huge, warm fuzzy feeling now. If this sounds like I'm relentlessly hyping git annex, it's because I am! It deserves it!