What is the best way to organize GIS data?

[EverettNeucere1]

We currently have a network attached GIS drive that has not been organized in about 2 decades. I am trying to go through and organize the data. We mainly work in Texas so my folder structure will go as follows.

Texas (State) > Harris (County) > Houston (City) > Environmental (Type of data) > NWI (agency data was collected from) and finally the actual dataset.

If a dataset is larger than a city or is for the entire state the dataset will be in the folder that will encompass it. For instance for all of Texas' roads, they will be placed in Texas > Streets > TxDot 

There will be an additional folder with year if the same data set was gathered from the same agency multiple times.

Is there a better way to organize a lot of data?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

What works for you? Does anyone else use it?

I like the spatial sorting idea personally. 

I would recommend including 'time' in there as well.

Many times, I will pool by attribute into a common folder (gdb's, shps etc) if they will be used often and to facilitate retrieval for attribute related analysis.

I would suggest that you create a master index by space and by attribute for those that follow afterwards.

[EverettNeucere1]

About 14 people would need to be able to find things on the server for various projects. I was thinking of including an additional folder for the year of the information. It is a good idea to have a quick access folder for items I know will be accessed a lot such as street data or parcel data. 

[RafaelFernandes]

Hi Everett,

Are you using ArcGIS Server to organize this data? If so, you might be able to leverage Portal for ArcGIS to organzae the content with now extra cost. Portal for ArcGIS enables administrators to manage users, and their access to the information. Which in turn will allow you to monitor who is using what data.

Feel free to ping me we can take the conversation offline if you have further questions.

thanks,

Rafael