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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?"
Then quit your bitching about shit, you little slut
Whoa, I never thought of doing something like that...
If only I had, that would be the perfect system. However my collection is already pushing 350+ disks, so I'm not about to go out and re-organize everything...
Keeping CDs in the spools has worked perfectly for me so far, but not so well for my brother. Long story short, don't get a peice of cheese welded to a CD spool, and leave it there for 2+ years.
Drivers? Get on the web, download the latest versions of everything, put them all on one CD. I guarantee that there is nothing else on those driver disks that's worth keeping.
Great, unless you can't find it on the web when you need it. Or you need a newer version since you upgraded some software, or you need an older version than the one you did burn, or you can't install just the driver without having the super-duper-install-drivers and-tons-of-crap-you-don't-need CD.
Games/Movies? Trust me, you do not need too keep every single one you ever purchased. I know it's tempting to keep them "just in case", but that case will never come. Sell them used or give them away. If it's in your closet now it can't be that worth keeping.
What? And jettison my 400 SVCD collection of my former VHS collection of crappy sci-fi movies?!? Why, just yesterday I watched episode 3 of Space:1999 ("Black Sun"), and I liked it!
Backups? Who are you kidding? I can't think of many scenarios where an individuals vital data would take up more than a handful of CDs or one DVD. There is some stuff that just isn't worth the hassle of backing up like that. If you've got a bunch of ripped music or something just mirror it onto an external hard disk.
I can back up everything important on one CD. It's much easier to do a full backup once a week than to do an incremental backup since I don't have any backup software to figure out which of the 8,000 files changed. Some of us work from home and might just need to grab some file from a month ago.
I say this as a reformed packrat.
You've lost your edge. What happens when you need that PDP-11 you just threw away? That 300 Baud acoustic modem? Moebius for the Amiga? That Video Toaster you swore you'd use to make a short film? A spare A1000 for parts? Need to make a Mac SE fishtank, but threw away the half dozen (still working) Macs? I've got all those and more, just waiting for the moment they're desperately needed!
I say this as a true packrat: Keep packing and ratting until it's not safe to open the door to your storage area. Then go rent another one.
Here come da fudge!
Remembering that when this involves a network card driver disc, you can find yourself in a bit of a catch-22.