Filing Order Preferences

Whatever makes sense to you and is most instinctive. You're using your library so it has to make sense to the way you use it; no one else matters.

personally I  would go with C and P as that what I gravitate towards. The only exception I make is for 'the', and then I always go with the first letter of the band.

HTH

I usually go with Surname, Forename but in these examples neither are their proper names

Definitely P and G...

Yes ignoring THE preceding band names helps.

I also separate by genre: classical, Accoustic, indie, dance and black music.

Ray

Definitely C and P

Mixing a difference into single artist and group name would be too confusing.    

Oh what a can of worms!

C and P for me

'The' always gives me issues. On balance for consistency I have 'The Smiths' not 'Smiths, The' etc

Genres? All a total mess, never search this way.

Soundtrack albums? Name of movie not artist (contentious?).

I'm sure there are others....

Bruce

I have a lot under " Various' and ' Various Artists."

One day I'll sort that out !

P and G. At least for records and CDs within a genre (I have separate racks for classical, rock/folk, jazz). I ignore the definite article. Classical filed under the surname of the composer.

But then on the NS01 it's the complete opposite. C and P and The (The Who is filed under T for instance). And remembering a composer's first name can sometimes be a challenge.

There is logic hidden in there somewhere!

Each to their own, if it works for you,  thats all that matters.     I no longer have vinyl or CD so its all done in the NAS & media server software without much thinking, although classical can be a nightmare if you don't learn to work with metadata.

I file in my NAS under the following methodology; with modern music I file by artist or band name they are known by,  e.g. Eric Clapton as a solo artist is listed in 'E',  exceptions are 'the' bands, 'Beatles, The' etc.   It can get tricky with collaborative albums & it's really a matter of preference.     

Classical is different, if the album is entirely by a composer then it gets filed under that name, if its an album by an orchestra/artists & a mix of composers, I file by whatever is the album title is. I might add a hint in the file title if its not clear who it majors on such as the composer or orchestra.

All this works well when I browse my prefered way with 'Folder View' mainly because I know my album file so well,   but with correct metadata mngt 'By Artist' 'By Album' & 'By Composer' all comes into play as & when required.

I ripped all of my music using the HDX, which left me with a lot of different names for the same artist, and a lot of Various Artists. I moved it all to a NAS, and went through and retagged it all. I didn't move or rename folders, I just use the metadata to search from the Naim app and from NServe. So that leaves me with C & P  as that's how the mediaserver does it by default. Oddly enough my CD and vinyl collection is usually by artist surname, but I had no difficulty moving to 1st name. On multi-composer albums, each track is tagged separately to make searching by composer simple.