Conserving HDD Space by Moving to DVDs... How do I re-find files?

Question

I'm going to have to buy another hard drive but at some point I need to stop that and remove the files I don't use often. When I show clients my work, I show them the PSD or JPG files so the RAWs can be put away on DVD.
However, before I start that process I want to make sure I know what's going to happen.
Let's say I have a foler called BobsPortraits and it has the RAWs and the PSDs in the main folder and there is a Prints folder with the high res JPGs.  I'll want to keep the PSDs and JPGs on the hard drive (there are usually only 5-10 of these per folder but often 50-100 RAWs).
What I'd want to do is move the whole BobsPortraits folder to a DVD, and then get rid of the RAWs on the hard drive.  How is the best way to go about doing this?  And what do I need to do if Bob ever calls back and says he wants to go over his photos and maybe order some more?
Thanks much for the help.
And yes, I'm Bob.
www.M3Imagery.com

Answer 1

Thanks for the infor so far.  Now it's going to get long and complicated:
So when I fill up my first set of 1TB drives, I'd just get another set and start filling that one up, and then so on?
Let's say I fill the first one up, or have 3 or 4.  How do I know which one to find what I'm looking for on?
You mentioned to output a catalog.  I'm not sure whether to create one big catalog or create many.  The way I have things separated now looks like this:
For models:
d:\Clients\Models\Name -- raws and psds are here
d:\Clients\Models\Name\ForWeb -- edited finals at low res web portfolio photos with my watermark
d:\Clients\Models\Name\Prints -- edited finals at high res portfolio shots
d:\Clients\Models\Name\Proofs -- low res proofs
And similar for portrait customers:
d:\Clients\Portraits\Name -- raws and psds are here
d:\Clients\Portraits\Name\ForWeb -- edited finals at low res web portfolio photos with my watermark
d:\Clients\Portraits\Name\Prints -- edited finals at high res portfolio shots
d:\Clients\Models\Name\Proofs -- low res proofs
However, business is different:
d:\Clients\CompanyName\Artwork -- Any kind of graphic design work like fliers, ads, etc.
d:\Clients\CompanyName\Docs -- Contracts, invoices, etc.
d:\Clients\CompanyName\Photos
d:\Clients\CompanyName\Photos\ProductLine1OrDate1 -- raws and psds are here
d:\Clients\CompanyName\Photos\ProductLine1OrDate1\Prints -- edited finals at high res portfolio shots
d:\Clients\CompanyName\Photos\ProductLine2OrDate2 -- raws and psds are here
d:\Clients\CompanyName\Photos\ProductLine1OrDate1\Prints -- edited finals at high res portfolio shots
And I also have my personal photos:
d:\Photos\2008\Family\SeparateDateFolders
d:\Photos\2008\Nature\SeparateDateFolders
d:\Photos\2008\Vacation\Location\SeparateDateFolders
d:\Photos\2008\Family\[SeveralOtherCategories]
d:\Photos\2007\Family\SeparateDateFolders
d:\Photos\2007\Nature\SeparateDateFolders
d:\Photos\2007\Vacation\Location\SeparateDateFolders
d:\Photos\2007\Family\[SeveralOtherCategories]
As you can see, since I deal with not only photos but artwork, web sites and so on, when it comes to businesses, I'll want to keep that together if possible.  I'm not sure if cataloging those is the way to go there.
However, for model and portraiture clients, it's mainly just photos.  Should each be saved as a separate catalog?  Should modesl be one big catalog or should each model be saved as a separate one?
Same with my personal photos.  You can see that they're in a separate root folder from my clients.  Should I save one catalog per year or just save all of my personal as one catalog?
Now, after that's done and I have everything out on removable drives, I have more concerns.  Do I, at this point, just delete everything from my internal hard drives and only work from the externals?  Or should I work from the interals initially and only transfer to the externals when I'm done with that project?  Like after done editing all of a client's photos, then save it out and delete it from my internal.  Or keep my 2009 personal photos on my internal drive until 2010?
And there's one more big monkey wrench to throw into the gears.  I work from both home and my studio.  I've seen people talk about syncing from a PC to laptop, but I'm trying to sync from a PC at one location to a PC at another location.  I'm running into a lot of problems with that now.  I'll shoot a session at the studio and import the photos to my studio PC to make sure they're backed up immediately.  Then I usually take my card home so that my wife can help me sort through the keeps and deletes and I'll end up with about 50 shots.  I'll then rename the files, rank and keyword them, and often edit most of them from there.  Now I have two completely different sets of files between my home and my studio.  How should I sync them at this point?  I've tried saving the catalog from home and then importing it at the studio, but I've had it do one of two things: either not import it because it's a duplicate (even though the names are different) or it'll import them again but add a "-2" to the end of the file name and keep them both.
Phew.