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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?"
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"
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)!
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"
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.
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
RAID is PART of the solution. The problem with RAID is that it doesn't account for Operator Error (deletion), Operating System Error (corruption at the filesystem level), Virii, etc. RAID is a great online-storage mechanism, but should be only an intermediary to tape/dvd/'permanent' media.
While permissions, ACLs, etc, can reduce the risk, RAID still doesn't protect your data from the more immediate threat.
Also note that RAID does not account for fire, flood, lightning and other things that may irreparably screw over the drives. Last I knew, Ontrac and others still charge by the size of the drive, and if you're using big disks, you'll pay a fortune. With RAID, generally the platters inside the disk must be relatively unharmed (no gauging, cracking, corrosion, etc) since you cannot do a recovery based on the file allocation tables since you don't have all of the data on the one disk. If they can transplant the platters into a happy drive, you may be ok, but I wouldn't bet my inheritance on it.
Now, if you can afford to create two RAIDs and keep one (if one is bigger, the bigger one) offline except when copying things that have changed in, you're in better shape- and even better shape if that is located in a different building or even locality.
Wow thats like having 48 diffrent televisions all tuned to a diffrent channel, completely overkill. teach him to copy the CD's to a hard drive.
I've never understood how "fit on standard bookshelves" was a feature of DVD cases. They're bulkier than jewel cases, which fit just fine on bookshelves and in a variety of other places that DVD cases do NOT.
I'm not trying to defend jewel cases here, they're obnoxiously brittle and the little disc-hub latches don't work very well. But when people talk about DVD cases fitting on bookshelves like it's something new, I want to smack them.
Great point, but could you please elaborate on the 'permanent' part of your statement, "but should be only an intermediary to tape/dvd/'permanent' media"? I am looking for a 'permanent' solution to store large quantities of data, specifically video and music files. My understanding is that burnable CD's and DVD's don't have the longevity that was originally thought. What are your suggestions for 'permanent' storage?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
But is it illegal if you take that 2nd copy of your music, and leave it at a friends house, offline?
What if you fill up a few 500GB drives (the sweet spot (on sale) if you consider the side costs of drives, hot swap bays, controllers, power, percentage of server cost), and just keep them at a friends home, sitting on a shelf. How can that be illegal?
Consider:
1. It's not illegal to make up your own mix cd.
2. It's not illegal to keep that copy in your car.
3. It's not illegal to drive around with that copy in your car.
4. It's not illegal for others to listen to that cd in your car.
So it is legal for someone to listen to your physical copy that you still own, in least in some cases.
1. It's not illegal to copy CDs you own to an iPod.
2. It's not illegal to carry that iPod around and listen elsewhere.
3. It's not illegal for others to listen to your iPod.
What if you loan that iPod to someone? Is that illegal? If not, how is that different from keeping a harddrive full of music (where you still own the harddrive) at a friends home.