Storing all those CDs

[psychophoto]

So I realized today that between all the stacks of CDs of archived images and

scans around my dorm room, there must be close to 200 CDs now. I need a

good storage solution. Desperately. How are you storing your CDs? There

seem to be a number of viable solutions out there, but what I'd like to do, I

think, is find some kind of binder/page system as it would make filing/

organizing cd's easy and would take up less room than putting cds

inindividual jackets and filing in boxes, etc. Any ideas on the subject would

be much appreciated.

[chris_hawkins]

Put them on a spindle in numerical order and be done with it. As long as you are reasonably careful you will not scratch them. The bigger issue is how do you know what is on what CD?

[majid]

I use CaseLogic CD binders, they are available in 256 CD capacities and use far less space than jewel boxes. I have 4 for my music CD collection, two for computer CD-ROMs and 1 for DVDs. And 0 for photos - I keep them on two external Firewire hard drives, not on CD-Rs...

 

If you have a linear filing plan (e.g. music alphabetical by composers), it pays to leave some gaps (I leave 1 page out of 3 empty) so you have some room for expansion without having to shuffle all the discs from binder to binder.

[majid]

Two other points, you need a good image database program for retrieval, I recommend <A HREF="http://www.photools.com/">IMatch</A> for its incredibly flexible category system.

 

You also need to edit more rigorously to cut down on the volume of data you are generating and keep retrieval manageable. I have some tips on <A HREF="http://www.majid.info/radio/stories/2002/06/29/digitalImagingWorkflowMatters.html">workflow</A>.

[demetri_p.]

I've had bad luck with binders for music cds. The plastic sleeves+some humidity has made the plastic stick to the label side of the cd. Portions of the top layer then just flake off (which of course contains your precious bits). I've found this particularly bad with tdk cd-r's...

[demetri_p.]

Followup: I've moved to those thin jewel cases for all burned cds. I think you can buy empties by the dozen...

[pcnilssen]

Demetri:

1)Are these plastic binders from Case Logic, and 2)have you made you own labels?

[demetri_p.]

1. Yes 1 of them was; 2. No labels (always used marker); peeling happened on unmarked part of CDs.

[michelle_cox]

I can't speak to the archive quality of this case, but I bought it to hold my TV show collection and it works well. Holds a lot of CDs, zips shut for portability, and it's cheap.

<p>

<a href="http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10264491&hdwt=31701&loc=14617">http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10264491&hdwt=31701&loc=14617</a>

[jeffrey_sipress]

I bought a few hundred paper CD envelopes with the circular window to read

contents written on the CD with a Sharpie. I found them at an online CD supply

house, I think their name was Effectuality. I use a container or box the width of a CD

to line them up so I can flip through them. I get hundreds in a small space. No jewel

boxes of binders or albums. Very space saving. There are nice wire mesh storage

containers about 10" long at Staples or other office stores.

[don_harper_the_edge]

I was considering the CD binders, but discovered it was much less expensive to buy the thin CD jewel boxes that I can place in a CD-Drawer. 100 boxes were less than $17.00 at the local Micro-Center.

[qtluong]

I burn each CD twice.

I use CD pages and a large, regular binder for one set. The

other set (backup) are stored in a spindle at another location.

Whenever DVD media will be standardized and competitive in price

with CD, I intend to transfer everything to reduce the number

of discs.