Data Hoarder

Yeah like 10 years ago

I just throw out the cases. Buy used, rip, store disk in a collection case.

I figure my DVDs and CDs don't take much room. I have a few Case-Logic binders that hold about 400 discs each. They're about the size of a medium-sized 3-ring binder.

Never throw away physical media. If space is a problem, remove disks from cases and store on spindles (the packages that CD-R blanks come in are ideal).

Most people run a compression pass on media rips (handbrake) to make storage feasible with today's disks and budgets. The day is rapidly approaching when hard disks will be large enough and cheap enough to store bit exact copies of your media. You'll want to rerip then, and having the media will make that possible.

Physical media serves as long term stable backup. It should be part of your backup plan, just like multiple physical backup disks sets, offsite storage, cloud storage, etc.

If space is an issue, there are easy solutions. Disks do not have to be in cases, and they're too useful to part with.

My physical discs are my ultimate "backup", also proof of purchase if for some reason in the future sharing my server with a FEW friends and family becomes problematic. I had the same issue with storage and at first went with binders and keeping the cover art but am now at the point of just buying disc spindles and throwing any new discs onto them as even the binders are too bulky for me (I have 4 200 disc binders currently which contains about 500 movie/TV series discs and about 300 CDs.)

Kept the discs, tossed the cases. You can fit a lot of discs in a sleeve book and they make convenient backups.

Buy > rip > give to me

Me i still buy VHS/DVD/Bluray. Some movies on vhs i have never got dvd or bluray releases. Others like the first Mortal Kombat, has different french dub (different voice actors and dialogue) and different background music on both dvd and bluray compared to vhs. The movie The Mask, on vhs as i recall has some scenes which are a few seconds longer and one small scene at the start absent from the dvd and bluray releases. Bluray doesn't have the french dub. So for some movies i have both vhs/dvd or vhs/bluray depending on the dub (if french dub is absent or altered).

For games i thrift a lot so i still massively purchase cd-roms & dvd-roms for pc. Since 2017 i bought like two hundred pc games. I automatically archive the discs and then proceed to use them to play.

I of course buy physical for consoles too and my video game shop of choice has 10 games for 30$CAD; systems included are PS2/PS3/PS4/XBOX/XBOX360/XBOX ONE. More common games and those which they have too many copies are part of the bargain. I got the dead space trilogy and crysis trilogy for xbox 360 that way. I buy games for all consoles except gb/gbc since buying high quality carts and flashing them is cheaper than the originals and you get FRAM instead of SRAM for your saves which makes them last up to 40 years. I don't buy nes/snes/genesis games anymore but once i acquire soldering skills i will buy again and change the SRAM chips for FRAM to have durable saves.

Years ago. I gave my last Blu-ray's to a mate about 5+ years ago.

The only optical drive I own is the one in my Series X, and that's only because there isn't a digital only version.

I’ve gone so far that I’m scanning my books. Almost done. DVD’s have been gone for years.

I donated all of my physical copies of things once I had a good system of doing it all digitally. It was one thing when the physical copies were what I used to enjoy the content, but when I realized I was regularly going to the digital copies of things I had physically, all of the shelves full of DVDs, albums, CDs, and books started feeling like little more than weird little trophy cases. In that context, the amount of space I devoted to them seemed silly.

If you want to keep the media but cut the space it takes up, but 90s style CD/DVD binders and toss the cases. I keep hundreds of my disks in 3 binders.

Surprised Ctrl-F turned up zero occurrences of "copyright". It is legal to back up CDs (which have no copy protection that would fall under DMCA), provided one keeps the originals. And I haven't heard of an individual getting prosecuted for backing up copy-protected discs like DVDs.

I keep my originals, for legal reasons. I wish I didn't have to keep the atoms around, but I feel like I do.

buy a couple of cheap plastic totes after christmas to put all the physical media in and store it. you will never get much selling physical media (with the exception of a few titles). and rebuilding the collection years from now will not be easy or cheap (since most of yours will be oop in 10-20 years)

I would never do this, personally. But it depends on the collection - mine consists almost entirely of 3D movies... most are out of print and many are now quite rare. If it's a bunch of easy-to-find titles then that's a different story

Havent had optical media since 2012, spare a few CD's I bought to support artists I like, which I can't listen too because no optical drive.

Do you have a system of backups for your digital library? For example at minimum do you have a physical backup of the data on drives not connected to your main computer AND an offsite backup (cloud storage or storing backed up physical media offsite)?

If not then you’re risking losing your entire library to one power spike caused by a nearby lightning strike or any other number of random events such as malfunctioning drives… etc.