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You could use a CD or DVD ROM library such as the R200ROM from http://www.powerfile.com/. A disc library used in conjunction with software which operates it allows discs to be automatically loaded and accessed. This kind of solution is expensive though, so is best used when you will have to do this frequently. Using several PCs or a local teenager may well be faster and cheaper overall.

I am a biomedical engineer for Cardiology at a top 25 research university medical center. One of my primary responsibilities is maintaining the cardiac PACS for the medical images we create. We generate about 2TB of data a year, and Radiology does probably ten times that amount. Our data, stored in DICOM format, is static; by law, we cannot change it (the patient demographic information is included in the file header and if a nurse mispells a patient name, etc, we only update the image location database, not the image file itself). Once created, the images are accessed several times a day until the patient goes home, when it might not be retrieved for weeks or months at a time. However we have a legal obligation to keep the image available for seven years (for kids, it is until they turn 21) so cheap storage is a good thing for us. The current DICOM standard archive media is DVD-R and we use 200-disc rack-mountable changers. We researched going with an EMC Centera NAS unit but our cardiac PACS vendor wouldn't certify it because data flows through and is altered by a gateway server. If we had direct access to cheap storage, we wouldn't be affected by the performance imbalance.

Buy 5 powerfile jukeboxes. I use mine (only one) with MythVideo and some homebrew perl scripts. But If you get five of them you would just have to write a script to change disks and call mplayer or xine on the disc itself. You can get them on eBay for $400-$700 or buy them new for $1500-$2000.

If you don't mind compressing the movies then You can get 4, 640x480 resolution divx4 br:1800 movies per disc. And if you understood all the above you are well on your way.

Take a look Here.

I should have done a little more searching before the initial post. The Powerfiles are nifty devices and they actually have a 200 disc single drive solution one for only a grand. It just seems like the idea solution for things like financial docs from previous years that are never going to change again. When the drives aren't in use, there aren't moving parts which should (hopefully) keep downtime from failed drives less likely. At 1000 bucks, even the added cost of the blank dvdrs (which is dropping) you'd have to use makes it a viable solution compared to a raid 5 of big eide drives.

Get a "Powerfile" unit from powerfile.com, throw all your CDs in there, get a command-line ripper and write a short script to load/unload the drive, and voila. It will take a little work, but it's doable. The trick is that the Powerfile does SCSI over firewire, so you get true CD ROM capabilities from the external changer. And there are two drives in the unit, so you can rip two discs simultaneously.

The bad news is that it only works on Windows or Mac. Actually, if it works on OS X then it shouldn't be too ugly to do this. Don't know if it does though. Oh yeah, the other bad news is that the Powerfile costs $1800, last time I checked. :(

Now just add this PowerFile 200 CD Jukebox that someone mentioned above, and use the Mac's built-in scripting language, AppleScript, to control it all and suddenly you're Hillary Rosen's personal nightmare.

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PowerFile is a 200 CD/DVD jukebox over FireWire. Hell they even sell a re-writeable version. Not sure how it would work on a PC, but on the Mac its AppleScriptable and along with iTunes 2 you could load this puppy up and have it rip all weekend. I have one of these at work for archiving and I will bitch about its ease of use, though with some tweaks to their provided scripts, it worked fine.

Anyone know how this could work on PC/Linux? They have a M$ SDK here which includes visual basic samples.

PowerFile is a 200 CD/DVD jukebox over FireWire. Hell they even sell a re-writeable version. Not sure how it would work on a PC, but on the Mac its AppleScriptable and along with iTunes 2 you could load this puppy up and have it rip all weekend. I have one of these at work for archiving and I will bitch about its ease of use, though with some tweaks to their provided scripts, it worked fine.

Anyone know how this could work on PC/Linux? They have a M$ SDK here which includes visual basic samples.