Not a Raspberry Pi because that wouldn't be feasible to me because I don't have alot of space for USB drives. I will be using a Dell Precision T5500 Workstation running Ubuntu 20.04 because I need a box that could house my drives that I will be using and also I will be using the machine for ripping dvds via Handbrake. Yeah I know there are Linux based server OSes but I need one with a GUI and be able to use Handbrake as well. So it will be used as a workstation as well as a server.

I back them up to a few HDDs.

The root folder is GAMES, and under that I have sub-folders for different stores.
For GOG I have so many games now, that the next sub-folder is an alphanumerical one based on the first character of the game title, excluding any leading 'The' which I always place at the end of the game title.
I have further sub-folders for patches and updates and DLC and sometimes other extras.
I also have web folder called '_Html' where I store a saved copy of the game's web page at GOG, and sometimes I might include other saved web pages from Wikipedia or elsewhere.

So for a game like '15 Days' I would have paths like the following.

G:\GAMES\GoG\1\15 Days
G:\GAMES\GoG\1\15 Days\_Html
G:\GAMES\GoG\1\15 Days\Patches
G:\GAMES\GoG\1\15 Days\Updates

Or for the game 'Heroes Chronicles - All Chapters', the following.

G:\GAMES\GoG\H\Heroes Chronicles - All Chapters
G:\GAMES\GoG\H\Heroes Chronicles - All Chapters\_Html
G:\GAMES\GoG\H\Heroes Chronicles - All Chapters\Chapter 1 - Warlords Of The Wasteland
G:\GAMES\GoG\H\Heroes Chronicles - All Chapters\Chapter 2 - Conquest Of The Underworld
G:\GAMES\GoG\H\Heroes Chronicles - All Chapters\Chapter 3 - Masters Of The Elements
and so on.

Or the following.

G:\GAMES\GoG\T\Technomancer, The
G:\GAMES\GoG\T\Technomancer, The\_Html

The game title folder also contains an image cover file called 'Folder.jpg', downloaded from GOG, and depending on the sub-folder, might have one as well, if available. That way I can browse via image or title.

As you can see, I like things well organized. :)

This has to be the worst folder structure :D
Why use this when you can just filter folders on name?

Mine: GoG folder with a script to download and update games and that's all, no need to fancy manually kept folder structures.

In this I agree with timboli. My folder structure is quite similar (though store moves under the game name folder as I can have the same game from different stores. The reason is time. I have some 13tb of information stored over time from many different sources in very different t setups. I have loads of mods and patches, disc images, documents. Many years back I had a much more basic structure and didn’t bother with it too much, and had an excel sheet. One day I looked at my excel sheet and it was corrupted by a sort at some point. So I had to rebuild the whole thing, including ripping all my old games. A lot of this I had to do manually as it was all so badly organised. I vowed never to have to do that again. Now I have a database for metadata and fixed folder structure so can programmatically check and alter things very easily.
Same goes for anything else, music, film, pictures etc. it starts out small and easy to manage but will rapidly cost you more time than being organised up front.

Well I get why music needs to be organized there are apps for that thou. But games and movies? Why their name is not enough?

Ok, I just like using the Raspberry Pi as a 24/7 (file) server because it takes so little power and doesn't make any noise (besides what the USB HDD makes), so I don't care at all that it is online and turned on all the time.

It has a normal GUI and I do use it also as a normal workstation (mainly using a web browser with it, and Thunderbird to read my emails, I can actually do also my work with it using VPN and Remmina (=remote desktop to my work)). Oh and since it is using my 65" OLED living room TV as its display, I use it also as my media center to watch movies etc.

Also since it is running TeamViewer Host, I can also use it from my other PCs (with full GUI etc.). As mentioned, Teamviewer also allows me to transfer files to/from it from outside my home (as ssh/scp is currently restricted to my home network, I haven't opened the ssh port to the world).

If you have enough of anything, organisation helps. Series, movies with same names, remakes, different formats.

Imho just delete some old stuff , you won't touch most of those anyway ever again.

LOL. Each to their own.

I like to be well organized, and as I don't store games on the PC I download with anyway, and store on multiple external drives, it's a mote point.

And I like things to look neat and tidy and be easily understood and sorted.

Take the name you would use 'aer' which for me shows as 'AER - Memories of Old', an altogether more pleasing title.
And many games sort differently for the titles you would use.
Take '8th_wonder_of_the_world' for you and 'Cultures - 8th Wonder of the World' for me.
And there are many more. For instance, I like all my Star Wars games to be together, but with your GOG use of game title, that doesn't happen.

I'm sorry, but I find lower case names with underslashes for spaces, to be ugly.
That said, that is how I store my Linux games, but in alphanumeric folders as well.

F:\Linux Games\GoG\8\8th_wonder_of_the_world

With 1,010 Windows mostly games I currently have at GOG, it also helps with folder thumbnails if not too many show at once, especially on external drives, hence the alphanumeric sub-folders. Also makes for much quicker targeted browsing.

But like I said, each to their own ... whatever makes you happy, that doesn't harm anybody else, do it. :D

P.S. There are many rhymes and reasons I do the structure and naming I do, some of it related to programming and backing up, and why bother filtering when you can quickly browse. I also store info about my games in an Excel file, and that has all the filtering and macro options I could ever need.

Yeah, I see, you want it neet and tidy. It is just too much work for little benefit for me.

If you don't touch "most" in the future, that still means that you touch "some".
Deleting something predetermines what you can return to in the future. Backing up everything leaves everything open.

How can you make today a decision on what games you are going to replay 10 years from now?

I'm not even going into other variations, like letting someone else try out something from your collection for the first time for that person, or joining some group playthroughs of some older games.

Try Enterprise drives, like the helium filled ultrastar ones. I have two of them and they are quite cool in operation. Also quiet. And they go up to 18TB

From past experience, I don't replay games maybe ufo 1-2, it is pointless. Just play new games. Did you play out all of your games? I doubt it.
And im pretty sure there are games you know you wont ever play again-> delete them.

Plus I still can download them from here later.

No, I haven't played them all, and most games from some bundles I am probably never going to play. Having said that, some of my best gaming moments are picking some unknown games that came from some bundle or free giveaways and being pleasantly surprised.

But just because I have some backlog, quite a lot actually, that doesn't mean that I don't go back and replay something that I have already finished. I am planning to replay King's Quest series when I have time in the future, even though there would be some new titles as well.


Can you?

How about DotEmu? Ever heard of Desura?
GOG can pull the plug any day if someone makes that decision, and you can do absolutely nothing about it! The only thing that you can do, is to be proactive, and back up everything before it's gone for good.
And one day GOG will be gone. So will be Steam, and every other online store.

I disagree. It is sometimes a delight to revisit my ancient mp3 music or avi movie collections, revisiting some marvellous pieces of music or obscure movies I had almost forgotten exist anymore. Many of them I can't even find in e.g. Youtube or such.

The only dilemma for me is family photos and videos. I really don't know what to do with them, should I keep them or just delete them. Some of them are precious, but 80-90% is just useless fluff.

I used to sometimes backup the photos and videos me and my wife have on our phones (especially when we buy new phones), but the amount of photos/videos is nowadays staggering as it is so easy to take them with phones every day. How do I weed through all of them to keep only the precious ones like e.g. photos and videos of our wedding or memorable trips abroad, and delete the millions of photos of my wife taking photos for social media on what she is going to eat for lunch.

Maybe computer AI becomes so good at some point that some applications can recognize automatically which photos and videos are worth keeping.

Yeah yeah I could just delete everything... but I still remember how precious it was when I e.g. found a photo of my late father, when he had been young (like 20 years old, long before my time; my wife said he never realized I had such a handsome father ("Much more handsome than you!" she said), when she saw the photo). I would never want to delete that photo, but maybe my kids or grandchildren wouldn't care of that photo if they don't even know/remember him. They would be like "Oh, that is what one of our direct ancestors looked like eons ago? Cool, I guess... back to TikTok!". But I am pretty sure they will become nostalgic at some point as well!

I do replay games that brought, and still bring, me joy.

A couple of weeks ago I e.g. decided to install and play Age of Empires Gold as I found the CD in the cupboard. Damn it is still a great game, just last night I played it until 2:30AM. The gameplay is both simple and challenging, at the same time.

I try to limit revisiting games I've already finished and instead try new games... but sometimes it is just easier to go to an old game that you KNOW is great, and you are already familiar with how to play it (no learning curve).

An example: I was eager to start playing Rise of Legends years ago, as I got the impression it is like Age of Empires on steroids. In a way it is... but I still hate the game. I stopped playing it, while the original Age of Empires (and the sequel AOE2, and Age of Mythology) bring me lots of joy.

Or Starcraft. The first game is still great, Starcraft 2 is crap.