CD Storage Advice?

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm up to my ears in CDs! Driver discs, games, software, music, data backups, you name it. Right now they're all stashed in various jewel cases and sleeves, and dumped into boxes in my closet. What's the best way to sort and store them? I bought a 128-disc storage binder, but once it filled, it tore apart from the weight. Any ideas? Does anyone make large-capacity binders that are sturdier than the average stuff you'd find at a Best Buy? What do you use?"

Huge binders

[SithGod]

Living in a colege dorm I have to be really concearned about keepiing all my disk organized and not taking up too much room. I have a 360 capacity binder I use for my DVDs, a 280 binder I use for TV Shows, a 240 binder for games, and a 128 binder for drivers. I suggest looking on ebay for binder this size becasue retail places will just rip you off

allsop

[hillg3]

Allsop has a ton of robust cd storage [allsop.com], check out the cd albums and disc storage boxes. Might not be in the quantity you want, but at least they look better than that black cd case you're using now.

Convert your archive

[Mercury2k]

My advice to you would be to convert your archives to DVD. If keeping them in 650/700MB cd format is important, make .iso images of the CD's and save a few of them on the DVD and use something like daemon tools or alcohol 120% to mount the iso's as you need them. The conversion alone should save you at LEAST 5 times the number of disc's.

Best case I have found yet

[Admiral Lazzurs]

http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Name=cd+cas e [aria.co.uk]

It is basically a large metal case, quite hard to destroy and has single inserts for each disc.

I would highly recommend it, I have many friends who use these for when they are doing dj'ing at clubs to take their music collection on the road.

Kind regards

Re:My solution

[sampowers]

If you like the idea of using post-its to index sections on your giant spindle of CDs, but don't want to peel the data layer off, you could use those CD-shaped non-cd things that ship with CD-R spindles. There's usually 2 per pack, so they should be easier to come by than the spindles themselves. I have about 10 of them at the bottom of my unindexed spindle right now.

Discgear

[deicide]

I picked up one of these Discgear [discgear.com] things at a local discount store and it's been working pretty well.

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[account_deleted]

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What I do...

[Raisputin]

I have thousands of CD's that I have collected over the years. Recently I figured out just how much space they took up, it was frightening. I made backups of probably 90% of my Music CD's on my computer and even then realized that I do not even listen to 90% of that stuff any more. I want it around for nostalgic value or if I need a song for the club, but I finally took all the originals to a local music shop and sold them.

When it comes to data CD's with drivers, etc. I just am not able to convince myself to get rid of them, so I went to and downloaded DiskTracker [disktracker.com]. It is MacOS X only, but it is an awesome application. There is probably something similar for Windows (Check Versiontracker [versiontracker.com]).

After installing Disktracker I made sure that it serializes each CD with a simple number 1,2,3,etc. and bought some CD Binders (Fellowes seem to be sturdy enough). Now I am in the process of:

1. Insert CD
2. Let Disktracker catalog it
3. Eject CD
4. Write Serial Number on it with Sharpie Marker
5. Insert into Binder
6. When Binder is full write on outside something like 0001-0128
7. Repeat ad naseum :)

The System seems to work pretty good. Now when I need any particular file, I just open up disktracker, search for it using the built-in search function and then find out what CD number it is on. I open the proper binder, take out the CD and use it, then return it to its proper place.

I have probably another 750-1000 CD's to go, but they now take up significantly less space and that in itself is worth the time I spend cataloging them.

Re:My solution

[Glonoinha]

Most burnable CDs have the clear plastic armor on the bottom and what best resembles aluminum foil on top - the laser reads through the clear bottom part, reading pits burned into the in-side part of the aluminum foil. As long as the clear side is pretty clear (ie, not scratched all to hell) the laser can read through it (if not, clean it off with warm soapy water and a soft rag) - but the aluminum foil side (aka the label side) is exposed to the elements and is about as fragile as aluminum foil. There is no plastic armor protecting it so anything (including simply putting it in the sleeve in your CD binder, or leaving it exposed to harsh fumes in the air) can damage it over time.

The solvents and chemicals in sticky notes or certain pen-inks will do bad things to the aluminum foil side, chemical reactions and all that, and then your data is gone forever.

Re:What I do...

[rusty0101]

Let's see, there's GTKatalog, and I suspect that there are several others for Linux, though all I did was search for catalog in description, and that's the only CD related app I found. (Lot's of other apps)

Can't recommend, or condem it as I have not used it.

Good luck.

~Rusty

Re:Paper sleeves in boxes

[silvwolf]

I wish I could find Tyvek sleeves, but nobody seems to sell em anymore, they might take fractionally less space than paper, they're thinner.

Tyvek sleeves [rima.com], though they are quite a bit more expensive than paper sleeves [rima.com]. I bought a spindle of TY 8x DVD+R's from them a couple weeks back. Shipped out same day I ordered.