The Second Kingdom is coming. We have seen the First Kingdom, and we have seen it fall. Now, we move from this infant state of true digital media satisfaction into a more robust era of home network shenanigans. This era will take form under the auspices of a code of conduct designed to both improve the function of the archive, and the integrity of its bits.
The First Kingdom was a thing of such novel beauty and staggering largesse. The stewards of this kingdom poured their efforts into it: growing, consolidating, growing, not without some misgivings about the expansion, but not yet properly conditioned to comprehend the truly tenuous nature of the archive they were engaged in creating. Then, suddenly, the machines gave out, the electrons settled, and the kingdom was reduced to ruins.
Aside from its revised structuring, based around a direct USB connection between Appletv and its external drives, the critical difference between the first and second kingdoms will be in the implementation of a comprehensive dual-format backup procedure.
1. Magnetic Backups: Files must be doubled within the magnetic storage available. Newly downloaded files should reside in the root directory, or a clearly designated folder of the primary (our current drive is likely to be split between television and movies) drive attached to the AppleTV until they can be backed up, and then filed appropriately within the genre categories.
2. Optical Backups: Subfolders in categories such as television series, director collections and genres should be backed up optically whenever possible, and then tagged and dated in spotlight comments. Optical backups should be added to a master list which includes filenames and disc titles.
Files which are grouped in genres and subcategories that exceed easy optical backup size should be backed up as they are added, and grouped chronologically with other items of this type. Special attention should be taken to preserve files with particular significance to the archive such as obscure or poorly seeded torrents, files ripped in-house, and files that are particularly interesting as "scene" artifacts.
In comparison with the previous system, in which coincidental, mechanical catastrophe resulted in the loss of nearly a year's data, this new mode of organizing storage should create an archive with two levels of protection against data-loss, one practically liquid and one more stable, that will foster uninterrupted expansion, complete restorability and rapid accessibility.
Kingdom Come!
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