Slashdot Mirror
Replacement for Jewel Cases?
PsychoBrat asks: "I'm surrounded by jewel cases at work and at home, and although most of them are still holding together to some extent, a lot of them have either cracked fronts, broken hinges or snapped teeth. Slim cases generally annoy me because I can't tell them apart by looking at their spines, and wallets take too long to sort through. What do you use in place of the standard fragile jewel cases to keep all your discs organized?"
they make cases for these things?!?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Get one of those nylon cloth book with a thick spline and over 150 plastic pocketed pages that holds 8 CDs each in plain view.
100 Capacity CD-R spindles for the cheap guys, and the huge super-100 capacity cd/dvd binders. You can get a nice binder for $15 these days. Both ways are very efficient and save much more space than jewel cases.
We are but a pixel in the JPEG of life.
Do away with physical storage beyond backups of your library... Ok, thats a little facetious; but it *is* the solution I selected.
As an aside, where the hell did the name "jewel case" come from. Its cheap arse polystyrene with some coloured paper and a lump of polycarbonate and aluminium inside. There is nothing even vaguely jewel-like about it?!!?
err!
jak.
I use different colored paper sleeves. Those packs of 50 in 5 colors from Memorex are great and disposable
Use CD cases for CDs, and jewel cases for jewels.
Alcohol 120%
what it's for. If it's DVDs for the kids it goes in a folder. If it's essential backups they go in hard cases. If it's one of the zillions of other backups I make I simply title them, date them, and drop them right back on a spare spindle. They take up less space, they are as protected as any other method, and I know before hand that chances are I wont ever need to look at them again, but just in case, I've got them.
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
It makes for efficient storage, but when you actually need to find a CD, it's even worse than thin cases or binders, because you have to shuffle through a huge stack of discs to find the one you're looking for...and that's assuming that you know which spindle it's on in the first place.
So...basically, for ease-of-location, spindles are a bad idea.
I feel your pain, man. I've moved several times in the last 5 years and jewel & DVD cases have been big problems for me. Here's a couple of things I've done:
1. Ive purchased a few of those Nylon CD case thingies at Best Buy. Okay, I'm an idjit for not knowing the proper name for them, but hopefully you get the idea. I intentionally bought ones that are very different in design so I could tell them apart. I have a grey one that I keep the DVDs in and a black one for backups. I also have a blue one for some of my PS2/Dreamcast games etc.
2. I have a big hard drive that I've copied a number of the CDs to. Nearly all of my driver and application installs are there and I can just browse to the folder and get it started. I've also downloaded cracks for a few of my games so I could do that as well. (I love how that makes me a pirate even thoug I own the game.) Every year or so I buy a new hard drive and move the data over. Lately I've been using external drives so that this process would be a little more laptop friendly.
Eventually I'm going to rip my DVDs and do the same little trick I mentioned in step 2. I have a DVD +RW DVD burner that my DVD player happily plays, so on movie night I can just get a burn going and play it. (More specifically, start the burn the night before... but you probably get what I mean.)
With hard drives as big as they are these days, physical media is becoming more and more of a nuisance. Netflix is looking awfully good to me right now.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.papercdcase.com/images/cd.pdf Can knock em out in 30 seconds once you get the hang of it. Good for mailing and scratch protection, maybe not so great for rough environments.
It depends on two factors:
1) How many CD's there are
2) How often you expect to use them
If there are many CD's, your choices are either thich jewel cases or the circular stacks with the pole in the middle, that come with a bunch of CD's. If you expect to look through them, you should buy the thick jewel cases (or a binder, actually). If you do not, storing them on the large circular things is great, because it does not take up too much space. Essentially, if you want to have it, *just in case*, go with the smallest, least obtrusive method. If you want to use them, then go with something that is easy to look through.
Having said that, I suggest you stop using CD's. Buy a large USB disk, create a backup directory with a bunch of subdirectories, and use that instead. Or even buy an external hard drive for backups. If it's really that important to you, it's worth the cost. Also, consider backing up over a network to another server, as opposed to physical media (or along with physical media).
Own any CD-singles? These come in a slim package similar to jewel-cases. Unlike most "slim" cases you find CD-Rs in, these have an enclosure for J-shaped paper inserts, designed for titles to show through the transparent spine.
So, versus jewel cases, you gain saved space, keep the ability to scan through a stack of them for the right disc, but also keep the fragility of plastic.
I can't imagine you'd find any enclosure system not based on a plastic package that lets you scan through a stack of them.
A manufacturer.
Google.
I think it helps to think about this problem and identify some basic constraints:
1. You want to organize a great number of physical items. This means you simply need a proportional amount of space, unless you use a more efficient (i.e. physical volume per byte) storage medium
2. You want a system that allows for easy access and identification of these items. This will require even more space, unless you offload access and/or identification to magical computer land.
Just writing those two things out has led me to think of a number of possible solutions outside grappling for some magical panacea to CD storage:
As for constraint #1, consider buying a hard-drive and migrating CD contents to the drive.
As for constraint #2, there are a couple of ways to go. You could buy/build some sort of system that stores and retrieves CDs for you. Then you wouldn't need a bulky jewel case, just a bar code. In a similar but simpler vein, just make a database of all your CDs. There is a surprising amount of information present in the cases, which is why you want full view of them. But get that information in a database and you can use a simple UID to identify CDs. Then you can store CDs in small cases or even a binder.
In fact, if you go to a UID system, you can put all your CDs in one of those big binders. If you keep them ordered by UID then you can access via binary search -- get your big O down to log(n)!
Bittorrent. Thumb drive.
Just incredible. Over a dozen posts, and not a single person has stated the obvious.
Amaray DVD Cases
They come in regular size and super-slim. You can place artwork inside that covers the front, back, AND spine. If you don't want artwork, you can get them in clear form. They fit on a standard bookshelf. They're made of durable, flexible plastic so they won't wear to anywhere near the same degree as CD cases. They can hold manuals, and other materials on the inside. You can get them in forms that hold multiple disks. Etc., etc., etc.
Basically, they're the nearest thing to a perfect case.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Go to www.newegg.com, order a 750gb 7200.10 HDD, that should hold more than enough music, and it's all contained in a 3.5" Chunk of metal.
In Soviet Russia, Linux compiles you!
There are really a few solutions, depending on how many disks your trying to keep track of and how often you actually need to get to them.
If you are talking about a relatively small number of disks that you are going to access often, then the best solution is probably just copy the disk images to your hard drive. It's pretty simple to mount an image under Linux, and I believe there are programs available to do it under Windows too (though some games I think break this programs to prevent piracy). I'm not sure about OS X, since I've never actually had to do it.
If you don't feel like (or can't) rip disks to your hard drive, and are still working with only a couple hunderd disks, then you might consider one of those holders that hangs on the wall. Not sure what they are called, think geek was selling them a while back. Basically, it's a big thing you hang on the wall, and put your disks in them so they face out. These work best if you don't have a bunch of disks that look the same (though you could always use a bit of tape and marker to label them).
If you have a lot of disks that you need to get to occasionally, then the best solution is probably just to buy replacement jewel cases. They are pretty cheap in bulk and you can just transfer the liners into the new jewel case when the old one busts. This scales pretty well and you can just stick them on a shelf and quickly find what you need.
Finally, if you have things that you almost never need to get to, or if you need to get to a bunch of cds at the same time (say, an OS disk, plus all driver disks, and software) then CD spindles seem to take the least amount of space. Just group the disks by task or category, then label them.
If you go the replacement jewel case route, you might just consider getting DVD cases. I find that they are a bit more sturdy than regular jewel cases, and still fit well in rows on shelves.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
They are slim cases, but otherwise they are really great: Ejector CD cases. I don't know if they have them in full jewel case width though, probably not, but that's the best I'm aware of.
Something to keep in mind. DVD's need to go into cases made for them. The holes will crack easier on a DVD compared to a CD. Now onto cases. There's the question of any documentation or other material that needs to go with the DVD(s)* BTW you can also get hanging plastic pages that go into file cabinets that hold 4 CDs and CD-size inserts on the back.
*FEAR Directors edition comes with two DVD's on one hub. and two pieces of documentation.
A disc carousel?
s c_stakka/
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/04/21/imation_di
For movie DVDs which I burn, I have a folder with a capacity of about 150. That's so I can get to them easily. I don't bother with indexing this one.
For CDs and DVDs which I burn containing data (backups, etc) I index each disk and add it to my current spindle. I have a few spindles of 100 discs and the rest are 50 discs each. It works fine because I have a spare spindle, so when I empty a spindle of blanks, that spindle gets filled later with burned discs.
I have more spindles laying around my work and home than you can imagine. They are cheap and plentiful, and I have a million of them. The only bad side comes to the true organization of CDs. If you are somewhat good with "poor" organization, you can keep different CD/DVDs in different spindles.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
This thing:
http://www.midi-classics.com/h/h26554.htm
I use a little filing cabinet type thing I picked up from a department store near where I live. There was a pretty wide variety of sizes and shapes. The one I have hold 100 CD's. Basically you file each CD into a number sleeve, then use the provided index to catalog what's contained with in. Easy to use, and far more efficient that stacks of CD cases.
hellboy1975 http://www.foutheye.net
That is just awesome. I'm buying one.
I have a fellows hard-shell case that addresses this problem. The CDs attach to a double-sided split plastic plate, four to each page, 8 pages.
http://www.meritline.com/neracoclcddv.html these are perfect, as a test I chucked one of these with a cd in it against a brick wall from 6 feet at full force...the case it self was scratched, but not broken, and the cd was fine. worked for me but I wouldn't suggest it on a regular basis as ymmv.
You can tell I'm an aries because of my ram.
How come the cases are snapped or broken? Do you want to put all the CD's and DVD's in a big envelope, or would that be at risk to be damaged as well?
n/t
I'm in the process of disposing of all my CDs as everything I need is safe on my RAID5 back-up server.
To find anything just required a quick search function. If the item is an audio CD ripped to FLAC then I que it up, if the item is an data CD then I mount the image file... My storage space has reduced from several large bookshelves full of CDs down to one small box... As for power consumption, I live in a cold sub-zero-celcius environment and any extra heating is welcome!!!
Does it go on forever?
I use catalogs and cases. For my 1300 data-filled dvds (legitimate backups, honest!) I use a nifty app called SuperCat which lets me browse all of my discs in an explorer-like interface, and is fully searchable. My discs are all in label order, so on average it takes me 30 seconds to find what I'm looking for in SuperCat, find the disc, and get it in the drive. For proper audio CDs or film DVDs, duh, store them alphabetically, in wallets or slimlines, or use another of many available catalog apps.
The poster doesn't want binders...
Does it go on forever?
I used to DJ for a college radio station and I found my CD's would get scratched using a big binder because of tiny bits of dirt would make holes in the data layer from the weight of all the other full CD pages on top of each other.
Now I swear by the Viewpak XG by Univenture (bottom of the page). They are heavy duty vinyl slips with a soft backing for 1 CD/DVD, a slip for the front cover of the album, and a back slip behind the CD for the back cover of the album.
They have packages without the artwork slips if you don't need them.
These things are real slim, robust, and if you need to order alphabetically or whatever, it's very easy to add or subtract from your collection without having to mess with everything (ie, in a binder).
They also sell Storage Boxes that are just the right size for the packs, or course you can just use shoe boxes or home-made wood crates like me.
Univenture has at least one customer for life. Long live physical media!
Shouldn't You expect more from your DJ?
The route I chose to take for this situation is rip images of all my CD/DVD's and store them on one of three 300gig hd's wich I keep nicely tucked away in staticproof bags and the little supports they come in. Then I take all my CD/DVD's and organise them by music/movie/software and put them in seperate boxes further organising them alphabetically in their respective box which gets stowed away. Then for whatever I need at that current moment be it a game that requires the CD (if I cant find a no-cd crack but then again I give up easily) I just burn to a CD/DVD and keep that out in those pesky jewel cases so I can actually read the label I write on it. If I beat a game, get bored with it, overwatch that DVD or the CD/DVD just gets to scratched and I cant be bothered to burn another one it just gets thrown out. Installing software I try to avoid burning a cd just to install it once but you get the idea, you have two backups one is digital for easy access and the other is the originals just incase.
If you have the old caddy-type CD drive, a big pile of caddies is a good storage option. That way you never touch the discs themselves, so avoid the scratches and fingerprints. But those drives are getting hard to find. Personally I got a lot of caddies on ebay, but have had too much trouble with the drives (and besides, SCSI is its own hassle). I also got a rack-mount box with 8 caddy-type drives in it, and my plan was to put a low-end motherboard inside and use Linux to serve up individual NFS and Samba exports; but then I would have to deal with issues like automounting/unmounting on access, and a software eject mechanism that works across the network. I haven't gotten around to it so far. By the time I do, CD's may be obsolete.
I also got an NSM 100-CD jukebox on ebay. It has SCSI for the drive, and RS-232 to control the robot. I managed to find specs for the control protocol on the net, so wrote a program to control it. At one point I had an automount lashup that would automatically load the right disc when it is accessed, but it didn't work quite right, so I was going to reimplement it using FUSE. I haven't gotten around to that project, either.
Nowadays hard drives are just too cheap. Might as well consolidate all those discs in one place.
I've also downloaded cracks for a few of my games so I could do that as well. (I love how that makes me a pirate even though I own the game.)
Right there with you brother.
I started downloading the game cracks to avoid the hassles of the CD checks. With the CDs off in some never never land & the pirate checker on, I could never just play a game on a whim. I had to go dig the actual CD out of whatever plastic bin (toddler proofing)I put it in.
The problem is once I learned to download the crack, I had also learned where to download the game. Add to that I felt I got burned by being a early purchaser of some sequels that disappointed (I felt ripped off). Now I download the game and the crack. If I like it and play it, I'll buy the Original/Expansion combo that usually comes out 3 months after the Expansion hits.
So, in trying to avoid piracy, the publishers annoyed me to the point that I ened up learning how much easier it was to just pirate the game. Good move guys.
Almost the same with DVDs. They put so much ad crap in the DVD before the movie (Disney) I learned to rip the DVD, remaster it, and make a new DVD. Once you learn how to do that, you might as well get the DVDs from the library and make your own copy. Why buy the latest Pixar when you'll have to remaster your purchased copy anyhow? Just remaster the library's copy. Once again due to annoyance I learned how to be a pirate. You guys are doing great.
A friend of mine has a rack in his basement that has 48 SCSI CD-ROM drives mounted in it. He just keeps them all on-line 24x7. Never has to touch them!
John
I'm wagering the reason you're getting no love is that you linked directly to a page to buy the thing. There's a fair bit of anti-commercialism on Slashdot, and some might feel you're sort of astroturfing.
And, sometimes, "Redundant" is the best way to mod down a post if "Troll" and "Flaimbait" and so on don't work. It comes with the added bonus you're a lot less likely to get hit on M2 with it, because who's going to read all of the comments to see if you're really and truly redundant?
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
Inexpensive, biodegradable, and easy. Also helps you rid yourself of the notion that CDs/DVDs are anything more than bits of plastic that somehow merit being displayed on a shelf.
I went through this a couple of years ago. I had just under 2K CDs and spent a few weeks investigating storage alternatives which included everything from the consumer oriented 100-CD display racks for your living room, to large capacity wooden shelving, to painfully expensive specialised office cabinets. Complete waste of time.
Now, everything gets put into a paper window-less sleeve. Each CD gets a number, the relevant info is keyed into a database, and a simple label is applied to the outside of the sleeve. I figure it takes me about 20 seconds for each CD. Compare that to the time and expense of designing/printing/cutting up inserts for jewel cases (slim or otherwise), and you get the idea. If a database isn't your kind of thing, grepping a simple list should work just fine. As a side note, I entertained the idea of printing on the sleeves directly using a LaTeX template, but decided against it and use simple adhesive labels exclusively. Note that I opted for window-less sleeves to avoid having to design and print and insert for each CD.
As for "storing" all the CDs, I just modified a drawer by sectioning it off so that each section would hold exactly 100 CDs. The CDs are stored upright (to protect the CD) and arranged front to back, so finding and retrieving, say, CD number 0983, is quick and easy. Two drawers == 2K CDs. Easily expandable.
As for the old jewel cases, well, they were in mint condition so I gave them to a friend that collects music. Last I heard, he gave them away to a friend of his. I've reclaimed a huge amount of space in my office, and the clutter is gone. I have no "dusting" or similar nonsense to contend with, and made my life is a bit more sane by sticking a few plants on the shelves that were once reserved for CDs. Knowing that my CDs are protected in a cool dry place doesn't hurt, either.
You can buy sleeves directly from any paper manufacturer. There's plenty that offer specialised CD selections that will be happy to sell to you. Alternatively, you can buy a box of 1K from a reseller on eBay for just a few bucks.
As a final note, you may want to investigate something similar ready-made in the form of small metal or plastic boxes that resemble miniature hanging file folders; you can find these in most office-supply stores. The problem I've found with that approach, however, aside from the price, is that each hanging insert is prenumbered (a problem if for large collections) and requires you to squeeze 2 CDs into each. Hardly a safe approach considering how tightly they fit, not to mention that if you remove the entire insert from the box, you'll be carrying around 2 CDs instead of just the one you wanted.
YMMV.
I buy the hard plastic boxes that hold 10 cds each from rima.com, Hard Plastic Box for 10 CDs, 20-Pack. Of course, I put each CD in an individual CD sleeve.
In some cases, I put the device driver CDs together in boxes. In other cases, I'll put the various CDs for a particular CD in a box. And just slap a label on the front.
They take up a whole lot less room than individual cases and are much better at grouping things together.
LOL, well guess that's not an option for data CDs and DVDs no. But I can't recall ever having "broken" LP sleeves.
For DATA (original or otherwise) I use the (spray-paint color-coded/marker-written) cakeboxes where my empty CD-Rs and DVD+Rs come in and a few of those nylon book-type thingies from Case-Logic.
Also; my dad seems to have tons of those slimline CDR cases but these come already in lotsa purdy colors. Should be available empty just like the regular sized ones also come in colors.
As for my music/movies: I have all original CDs and DVDs and like keeping them prominently on display next to the HiFi, TV, whatever. Home-made, wall-anchored wooden racks for me. I have special cases for transport when needed.
- Music CD's: Spindle in the closet.
- DVD's: Case Logic 320 CD case. (which you can get refill pages for and put in more than 500 easily. See 8 disks on a page removable pages make it easy to keep them organized.)
- Backups, software disks, etc: Spindle in the closet.
- Disks I use regularly (Game CD's for copy protection, PS2 games, etc): 5 inch trigger cases.
I love the trigger cases, keep extra ones on hand to send when clients need CD sent to them. Paper sleeves don't protect in the mail, and jewel cases get broken too easily.Library supply houses have a variety of improved
CD cases. Demco (http://www.demco.com) used to
sell polycarbonate ones (i.e., bulletproof glass)
which were fantastic, though expensive,
but don't seem to carry them any more. They do
have a selection of polypropylene ones that are
still better than the usual polystyrene (enter
"cd cases" in their search engine). This
site has links to a few other vendors:
http://www.dansdata.com/discsavers.htm
Back in the punch card days, you could buy cabinets with drawers that were made for storing punch cards. They were just the right size for punch cards and not much use for anything else but storing punch cards.
I've thought about building a cabinet for storing CDs along the same lines as the punch card cabinets. Build drawers that are just the right size to store jewel boxes.
Right now I just stack them up in file cabinets. A CD cabinet would be a whole lot better.
When CDs first came out, there were some very low cost breadbox-like plastic boxes with slots for jewel cases. I bought about twenty of these boxes, for about $35 or so, and still use them. Then came all those more-expensive ways of storing discs; padded cases, flip racks, and other overpriced dreck. Try to get low-cost boxes for dead storage now.
I have cd suspension sleeves in a "suspension file" box. You can flick through the CDs, see the titles on the top of the sleeve, and stick on labels that stand above the level of the other cds to seperate sections. Plus you can sort/reorder discs by just popping them in where they go, unlike a wallet/spindle where you have to move all the other cds out of the way first.
The main advantage of Univenture disc sleeves is that they don't scratch the disc. This holds true whether you leave the discs in the sleeves for a long time or constantly take the discs in and out of the sleeves. I have been actively using them for YEARS with no visible disc scratching. In addition, their disc wallets have paper labels on the spines, which means (unlike other CD wallets) you can label the spines and thereby easily tell from looking at the spines which wallet a particular disc is in -- and yes, the spines are wide enough to hold disc titles for every disc inside, although you may have to write small.
The Univenture disc wallets have plastic outer shells which are considerably more durable than standard jewel cases. In terms of space consumption, they are comparable to spindles, because of the thinness of the sleeves. The only real drawback is the cost -- on a per-disc basis they literally cost more than blank media. Still, compared to the value of the data that I keep on my discs, the cost of providing good storage for the discs is well worth it.
Title says it all.
This is serious advice; using it.
DYWYPI?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=origami+cd+ca se&btnG=Google+Search
Make a lot of Paper cases to hold all of those CDs.
I've been trying to find the CD storage case in the CSI episode "Random Acts of Violence" where a man is killed by a single blow to the head (by what turned out to be a hammer falling through a vent overhead) in the server room of his company.
Anyone seen that episode and know who makes the disc holder the victim owned?
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
If your discs are valueable to you, then you should make backups of them in any case. And for these copies of discs that you will need to make, HDD space is cheaper and more convenient to use than plastic CDR's and DVDR's.
Mount the disc images from your HDD - you can easily sort them there - and put your original discs in storage, you won't need to access them often.
a) If you have several dozens CDs then go with those CD-bags (I don't know what you properly call them) with book-style leaves inside where you put in those shiny discs.
:)
b) If you have several hundreds/thousands of CDs/DVDs then just store them on spindles - those usually transparent cylindric boxes they sell blank media in. Keep a database though so you have some chance to find what you need!
I also have a dozen or so empty slim cases for moving things in and out.
I use the Univenture Poly Jewelpak Expanded Spine Standard (in black, which is not listed on their site but last time I talked to them could be ordered over the phone for the same price).
s .html
http://www.univenture.com/acatalog/Polydiscsleeve
Converting to the Jewelpaks took me hours and I only did a fraction of my CDs-- the ones I used to DJ with. The spine slot is narrow and it can be difficult to get the spine of the cd cover into the slot without folding it (in a bad way). You get better at it the more you do. If you dedicate some time to it, it becomes an automatic process. To use the spine slot you will have to rip the spine off of the CD cover, which is usually easy but could ruin its resale potential. Also, since the sleeve is sized to match the CD and front cover, the back cover of your CDs must be folded to fit into the slot. In my experience, however, most CDs have back covers with track listings flush right, flush left, or centered. Any of those will work fine. Track listings in a large circle or flush bottom don't work so well when folded.
The cool thing about the spine slot is that the edge by the CD bends easily, so you can actually flip through the spines to find what you want. And the spine slot is on both sides at the same end, so you can flip in either direction. I recommend standardizing to a certain direction so your CDs all face one way with the text all facing one way as well. Once you get the spine into the slot, its' not coming out again so you'd better get it in there the right direction the first time.
They are awesome. It's slim scalable CD storage. But you have to buy in bulk. The site lists sleeves in boxes of 5000.
The answer is obvious - duct tape.
Truly this is the only way to go.
I use "flight case" style boxes for storing CDs. You can get ones made for CDs, with plastic inserts to put them in. Then you can flick through quickly. Good ones have a bit of paper in the lid where you can make an index.
I use CD Index 2 for keeping track of all my DVD-Rs, BTW: http://home.so-net.net.tw/minghsiu/
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The packaging spool.
Since almost 100% of my current CDs are CD-Rs, I just stack them right back where I got them... well, where I got the previous batch from: the packaging spool.
I do have a question of my own: what do you do with too many jewel cases?
...a beowulf cluster.
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
As someone who used to own 2000 CD-R's ;) I've had experience. UniKeep CD Safety-sleeves are my current choice. I was happiest when I put them in a Keepsake plastic rubbermaid thingy and divided it alphabettically with a real jewel case for each letter of the alphabet and one for the #'s category. Yes you said no thin sleeves but this is a mix. I use the Nylon albums for my CD's but moving and re-ordering them is too much work. You can try to space out extra for each letter if you go by letter but it's still a guessing game. With sleeves and dividers by letter everything fits in a reasonable amount of space IMO.
Get a DJ's CD flight case. They have an index and thumbs so you can quickly find what you're looking for, and they're roadie proof, so your discs will be plenty safe enough. Leave the silica gel in there to help stop condensation ruining your precious discs.
Those vinyl paper inlays are the most fragile you can have in your box of records ; they rip easy, the glue dissolves after a time, leaving you a unfolded 24" cardboard as protection for your vulnerable nude 12" record; to not even talk about when it goed wrong when you try to put the record back in the cover and its stuck *inbetween* the glue lines.
CD covers are stronger, because they are made out of plastic and not paper which can rip in many circumstances; although; I still lack faith in their robuustness protecting their valuable audio as it is price-set today. I found out those soft plastic DVD boxes or those CD covers with a push-the-cd-out mechanism (without hinges) are one of the better/stronger/smaller/more flexible jewel cases out there; although the ones I got do miss some space for a decent inlay.
Those nylon books, I do not know what to think about them, I've got about 2500 cd's stored in such books and I see they do fail faster than they did when they used to be in their original jewel case; probably when you don't move such map a lot you won't get the same problems of wear (and tears for some of my cd's)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I use different colored paper sleeves. Those packs of 50 in 5 colors from Memorex are great and disposable
Paper is made of wood fibers and will scratch CD and DVD coatings. If you keep discs in paper sleeves you can end up "fogging" the disc with micro-scratches to the point where it won't be readable anymore, at least not without being repaired by something like this. (Just for reference I have had great results from that particular unit, and it doesn't leave radial lines like the "Skip Dr." units.)
Instead of paper sleeves, use non-scratching Tyvek (the same stuff they put on houses):
Pack of 100
Pack of 1,000
Just to stay totally on topic, the original poster may want to check out the complete Cyberguys catalog. They have a large number of different CD/DVD holder/case options, from quad CD jewel cases to CD/DVD carousels and other alternative storage possibilities. (Note this part of the quad CD jewel case description: "The durable, translucent polypropylene case will not break or shatter like ordinary plastic jewel cases". Interesting.) Something like this may actually be what the original submitter is looking for. No breakage and saves space but still has a readable index to make it easy to find things.
Cyberguys' prices are great on almost everything in their inventory and they have tons of "neato" geeky items that always make me wish I had more money. For basic computer items like network cables, adapters, cases of various types, testers and such, they have become my supplier of choice. For bigger stuff like hard drives, CD/DVD burners, monitors and such I still go to Newegg though. No, I don't work for them or get any kickbacks for the links, unfortunately.
After almost loosing (TWICE) my entire ripped CD collection (EAC Secure TEST/COPY into FLAC), I finally really heard what I had been told over and over but never believed.
RAID IS NOT BACKUP!
If you think having a parity drive makes your data safe, you WILL regret it. Even RAID1 won't save you when your power supply fails violently trashing multiple drives.
My solution? I built up a new RAID server with higher capacity drives, and leave the original server turned off as a mirror that I sync once every month or two. I occasionally compare every file to ensure no data corruption. It takes days to compare terabytes over a LAN, but then I know ahead of time about bad/failing hardware.
I use spindles myself, and the very basic supercheap trick I use is to cut out some CD/DVD-sized pieces of paper with a 'tab' on it to write a genre/series title/whatever - you can even color-code if you want to get fancy like that. Furthermore I have three different spindles: one for movies, one for all computer software, and one for photo archives+recorded TV shows+whatever else.
So if I'm looking for e.g. War Games, I merely have to grab the Movies spindle, open it up, look for the SciFi tab, and it's only a quick search between 8 or so discs, instead of all 80+ in the spindle.
That said, retrieving the disc in question is still a hassle (lift off all those on top, retrieve disc, place the rest back)... but the worst thing is - You cannot buy these damn spindles separately. So if you buy a spindle - great, now you have storage space. But wtf are you going to do with the 100 CD-Rs that came with it? %) Not to mention that you paid for all those CD-Rs.
i've had good luck with these
-schwal "Hanging is too good for punners, they should be drawn and quoted"
What I've done (at least I've done for a trial 50 CDs) is replace the jewel case with archival photo polypropylene plastic. The jewel case is an awkward size and yet I wanted to keep the back paper because it contains useful track information that I can refer to easily. So far I've been very happy with the solution although I'm thinking now that thicker plastic may be better.
In order to get the plastic sleeves to the correct size I bought a food bag sealer and 25 binder sheets of 5"x7" photograph plastic pages which I cut in half. Next I made a jig for the bag sealer to trim the 3rd side down to just large enough to fit the jewel case back paper (about 153 mm) which can be done by quickly tearing off the plastic from the front of the sealer while the seal is still hot. At first I wasn't sure how this system would work but the sealer when the plastic is torn off makes a very clean edge, so much so that I sealed the other two sides as well leaving the top open. Finally, I put each CD in its own envelope between the front booklet and the back paper.
For my next batch I'm thinking of buying a box of these.
For the first 50 jewel cases that I've replaced with these photograph sleeves I've saved nearly a meter of shelf space even though more than a third of those jewel cases were single width but double hinged, therefore containing two CDs. Although the side tabs on the end papers are not as easy to glance across as with jewel cases when on the shelf they are still moderately visible and it's definitely a tradeoff worth the space saved.
This will produce a different case than what is described in the pdf. I have been using these steps since 1997 or so to make quick CD cases.
1. Orientate the paper so the short edges are at the top and bottom (portrait).2. Place CD/DVD centered along the top short edge.
3. Fold the extra paper on the left and right over the CD using the left and right edges of the CD as a guide. This is a straight vertical fold.
4. Create a horizontal fold at the bottom of the CD. Use this fold to cover the CD
5. You should have a bit of paper at the top that overlaps the top edge of the CD. Fold this extra paper horizontally using the top edge of the CD as a guide, I find this works best if you fold towards you.
6. Bend the flap created in step 5 back up and tuck the flap into the two folds created in step 3.
This should give you a pocket that a CD slips in and out of nicely. While it is not as fancy as the steps in the
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based upon the order I joined. -Homer Simpson
It's kind of surprising, but the cost of storage per disc can be less by storing them in a carousel cd-changer than in any shelf designed to hold cds (or any other shelf for that matter). For a long time I had two, both capable of holding 400+ discs. Each player cost less than $250, and for shelves capable of holding that many cds I found those to be typically more expensive. Kind of weird, but true.
And, even though you may not be playing discs anymore (assuming you tote your music around as mp3 or some other non-cd format), these carousel players typically support display information about each disk (though mine required typing the info in via a keyboard), so you can easily get to specific discs.
I don't know if these changers are still made, but I'm betting you can find them on ebay for an even better price anyway.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/accessories/65a c/
Unpleasantries.
I'm glad your got all whiny and sulky about that. I would have gone looking otherwise, and discovered (within a minute) something really cool. Get off your lazy arse. You don't need everything spoon fed to you.
i fe-through-practical-origami-fujimoto-explained
Oh since I found it, here's another spoolful. Don't dribble...
http://www.envelooponline.com/nan/archives/easy-l
I happen to work in an environment that handles wafer carriers, among other things. Occassionally, due to the industry's very high cleanliness standards, a few may be doomed to the dumpster (this is very rare in my workplace, btw).
/.ers never deal with these things, here's a typical example.
Since the vast majority of
5" carriers are a perfect fit.
These things are much more expensive than most options suggested so far, therefore I don't recommend this to anyone that doesn't have access to discarded samples. The only other disadvantage is that they occupy a bit more space than the others.
The benefits to such an assembly are: clean, self-stackable, sturdy, and each CD is easily accessible/indexable (try finding a CD within a spindle). Since these things are built to be used in ultra-clean environments they are excellent at contamination protection, especially since they only come in contact with the edge of the disc.
...nobody's mentioned automated, robotic jukeboxes. :-) (You know, the ones with mobile arms that zip around the collection on rails.)
It's a silly solution, but if you're archiving the Library of Congress on CD for some crazy reason, there are few better solutions than letting a machine change your CDs for you.
Discgear stuff is pretty nifty. You get rid of jewel cases but yet retain a sane way of finding things.
For the less frequently used, replace the hard jewel cases with more pliable plastic ones that still have a spine and can either take the CD insert/back label or can be labeled: http://www.uline.com/AdvSearchResult.asp?view=ALL& SubGroup=5164&Source=20&BrowseGroup=87&Method=BROW SE&desc=Square+Plastic+CD+Cases
My company uses the cases and stores them in a large 4 drawer, 500 CD per drawer, media cabinet. I wish we had a jukebox.
It easily and compactly holds over 500 disks and is no bigger than a brief case (a little taller). The key feature is that the sleeves are in no way attached. They hang like a file cabinet, allowing for extremely simple alphabetization and additions. When the lid is closed, they are not able to slip off the rails. They also have smaller and bigger versions.
I use the Century CD organizer which is available from http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool s/item-details.asp?EdpNo=548251&CatId=44. One unit hold 100 CDs and is controled from your PC via USB or Serial. The included software isn't the greatest, but it does get the job done, and an upgraded software package will be out soon that allows you to view/search the contents of each disc. I have 3 at home and the work wonders for me - especially since the software keeps track of who I lend each disc out to, so I know who to hunt down if something goes missing.
I store the CDs in the spindle they came in.
It is a very compact storage. They are messy to search in, though.
I do keep an ID on every disc, and I could build an index indicating spindle id + position, I haven't done that yet (though I could, automatically at any time). I keep them hashed and I keep a second copy of the whole archive side by side, so in case of bit rot, I can rebuild the originals unless I'm very unlucky.
I think you're asking the impossible here. You want something compact, strong and easily searcheable. I'd say you cannot have all of them without some investment from you part. Why not keep the cds in folders with pages prepared to store a CD (I think you were calling that a "wallet", not sure if it's the same, but you should get the idea). Then you should make an index detailing folder number + page.
Having an ID on every CD helps a lot, though. You could just insert each CD in the drive once and have a program make a catalog for you, but even if you do it manually, you should be able to solve the searching problem, and then you can concentrate on durability and compactness.
Something else: take the most used CDs from your archive, make a copy and dump them in your computer desk top (the real one, not the virtual one). When you start using them, you'll make a least recently/frequently used cache without knowing. Since you're using copies you should have no problem with scratches, you'll get fast access, without compromising the main archive durability.
In any case, keep some empty jewel cases, you might need them to transport some CDs (even if they are only copies)
GPG 0x1B479C78
Why are jewel cases so prone to cracking? For many people jewel cases would probably be just fine if not for the fact that they are so prone to cracking. Couldn't they be made of a more flexible plastic?
http://www.variopac.de/english/Products/variopac.h tml
These are great, I have a few of them. They're thin, simple, come in a range of colours, and just work if you want to keep things safe, but don't need paper inserts, or spines, to identify things by. They also do a great job of protecting CDs from when you end up sitting on one...
I got theses sheet style holders from Urban Outfitters.
They have 7 rows, 5 columns
A couple sets of these with the CDs in label facing in looks nice i think.
I keep a sloppy archive of "B,3 or A,5" software stored on them. I stopped keeping the archive active as most of my CDs get tossed out after i transport the data. -but it did work good for a couple years.
I wonder which effects the earth more, 1 cd or its weight in paper.
Kill your TV
Wouldn't it be nice if there was some sort of resource where we could look up terms we didn't understand, so everyone in the world could have access to that sort of information? ... Oh, wait.
... Oh, wait.
Wouldn't it be nice if the website called 'papercdcase.com' contained more than just one pdf file, and also had an actual downloadable, printable template?
3. ????
4. PROFIT!
I use DiscSox http://www.discsox.com/ for my audio CDs and spindles for most of my data discs. The DiscSox are so much more compact and light than jewel cases (even slim) to you can put a lot of discs in a small space. They are easy to flip through like old LP bins. B
I used to work for a company called Discgear. This is what they were really good at. Try looking at their selector 100 FX. http://www.discgear.com/
My aunt has a huge collection of music (~1300 CDs), and she decided to rip it as WAV files. Three 250 GB USB2 drives later... It's a pain for her to make sure that all the drives are plugged in, powered on, detected properly, and then to make sure that Windows Media Center finds and indexes all of them so they can appear on her ROKU. I took her drives, converted everything to 192 MP3's, and they all fit on one 250 GB drive with room to spare. A bit (no pun intended) of a sacrifice in terms of the music quality, but the managability tradeoff is well worth it. Now to get MusicMatch and iTunes to work well together :)
I use wallets. I have two big Rubbermaid tubs, one for Videos and the other for everything else. In the first box, I have one 256 CD case for general movies, three 100 CD cases for anime, cartoons and TV shows, two 48 CD cases for misc videos and pr0n. In the second box, I have one 100 CD case for actual music CDs, another for Linux-related CDs and a 48 CD case for Windows-related CDs (incl. games and drivers -- smaller because I haven't used Windows for several years). I also have three 100 CD cases being used as temporary holders for various backups currently being processed.
So we are probably talking on the order of 500+ discs, some CD-Rs, some DVD+Rs. If all were CD-Rs, that would only be 350 GB and it would be doable to keep a server online of that. If all were DVD+Rs, it'd be over 2 TB. My own estimation is about 1.5 TB.
These nice Case Logic faux-leather cases are rather pricey (at $40 for 256, $20 for 100, and $10 for 48, I have about $200 in just cases) and sure it takes up more space and is slightly more awkward than just having one copy online. However, it's nice to have my movies on discrete, transportable discs (often DVD+Rs I can watch on someone else's TV) and I don't have to worry about deletion or file management. I can add another 215GB (50*4.3GB) for about $25 (TY DVD+Rs) + a $10 case = $35. Where else can you get $0.16 / GB?
Sure it'd be nifty to have a 2TB LaCie NAS or a homemade server with 10 250GB hdds in RAID 5 but this is about 1/3 the cost.
Note, this is just my home storage system so I don't mind swapping discs to watch a movie or play a game.
Ballmer smashed his chair.
god that was awful.
And I throw out the broken ones. I agree with you that the slim ones are no good (but two will take the place of one in a standard CD rack.) And like you, I find that wallets are inconvenient.
http://www.i4u.com/article2485.html
USB CD Carousel
USB CD Carousel
For people who have to many CDs lying around the USB CD Carousel might be the solution.
The device manages up to 150 CDs. The Carousel can spit out a CD via the desktop software or the keypad on the CD Carousel. Multiple CD Carousels can be hooked up together.
There are two models available. The newer one has a keypad and a USB hub built-in.
Do you make sure disk cache is empty when verifying files? Best is probably to turn everything on and off before verifying. I once had a problem that caused files that I was backing up across the network to have errors. I added verify, and files still ended up having errors without triggering error on verification - it turned out to be a cache problem - .i.e. linux was comparing the files to what it had in its disk cache, not to what was in the disk.
I really wish there was good way to verify files. Is there?
Check out jewelboxing.
:)
They're like regular cd cases with a serious case of awesome going on.
You mean that by now you haven't seen any of those 'zipper packs' that hold anywhere from 25 to 250 in something that resembles a 3ring binder with 'sides'.. They are sold *everywhere*.. even in damned gas stations..
If you want it electronic, get one of those 'carousels'.
For a super low-tech DIY storage device, get a dowel rod, some wood and some pvc pipe and a sharpie.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm sure that you've read a lot of the responses that say hard drives are the answer, so you may get tired of hearing it. But I'll say it anyway. All my CDs are on an external hard drive now. Nearly instantaneous access to any song in my collection, easy to backup (get another external hard drive.) Easy to listen to portably (get an iPod or other portable MP3 player.
Why don't you zip them, you'd save a lot of space and not lose any quality. Also, you will start to get errors at higher speeds of ripping on audio cds, as they don't have the checksum data contained on data cds.