Bulk back-up of 100s of CDs/DVDs to Hard drive.

[Gast]

I've got an old collection of 1000-2000 cd's and dvd's that I would like to copy to a hard drive or two then get rid of. At the moment, I don't have an optical drive and I'm looking at my options.

Here's what I think the breakdown of disks looks like:

• 01% Retail Movies
• 04% Audio CDs
• 10% Retail Software
• 39% Data backup
• 50% Blank Disks

These disks have been stored for years in a cardboard box and moved several times. Some in cases, some loose, but most on a spindle. These disks have been gone through several times and are pretty well mixed. I'm guessing that 10% of the disks are going to have read issues do to damage.

Ideally, I'd like to find one of those automated DVD duplicators that I can used to rip all the disks to .iso format, but I know the software & SDKs of those machines can be limiting.

Next best option would be buying/building/renting a tower with several dvd drives. My fallback would be getting an external bluray burner and slowly going through the disks one by one.

I'm open to any and all options. I don't mind spending some money (Ideally under $300 but up to $1000) to save time backing all these up. I know there's some important data (photos, writings, MUSH logs) that only exists in those CDs.

As any done this before? Thoughts?

 

[Ken g6]

01% Retail Movies

These are going to have issues with encryption, and the legality of copying them. I'd just keep them and set them aside from at least the bulk of this copying operation.

I think most automated DVD duplicators copy one DVD to many copies, rather than copying many DVDs to one hard drive. But I could be wrong.

Next best option would be buying/building/renting a tower with several dvd drives. My fallback would be getting an external bluray burner and slowly going through the disks one by one.

Why just one external drive? Why not get several, even if you have a tower with several DVD drives?

You might also find this helpful: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/auto-copy-data-cds-dvds-to-hard-disk-on-insertion.74385/

 

[Mushkins]

Good news and bad news.

The bad news is that there's really no way to just dump a spindle of 2000 disks in something, walk away, and come back to a stack of .iso files. You're still going to be stuck constantly monitoring the process (all disks have different amounts of data on them and take variable times to rip), and manually swapping disks to maybe 4-5 optical drives at a time.

At that point you might as well just spend $10 on an optical drive, manually view the files on each disk, copy/paste if you care or toss it right in the rubbish bin if you don't, and repeat.

The good news, you can at least look at the bottom of each disk to identify all those blanks and skip em

 

[Cerb]

[*]01% Retail Movies
[*]04% Audio CDs
[*]10% Retail Software

It would not be legal to rip these and then sell them. You could rip them and destroy them, but that would be kind of stupid.

For the data CDs and DVDs, any image making software will do the job, most likely, be it Alcohol, Daemon Tools, ImgBurn, or whatever else. Alcohol and DT would be better if games are involved, since they might have some copy protection implemented, that needs bypassing or emulating.

For the movies, if they're fairly old, DVD Shrink can do it, but if newer, not so much.

For the audio CDs, if they aren't in perfect shape, the drive matters, along with software. Of commonly-available good ripping drives, today, I know the Asus DRW-24B1ST and Samsung SH-224xx. Many in the past were, too, though. Some are just plain bad, however, and will let pass some pretty bad audible errors. EAC and dBpoweramp are easily the best ripping applications for Windows. Audio CDs are not like data CDs.

The software and backup discs will go quickest, but you would need to sit there and do it, disc by disc. Having done something similar before, organize them into small stacks of similar type, so that, as you take them from to do to done, you can keep seeing progress that you've made, rather than just a big mess of work to do.

 

[Gast]

I'm not looking to sell the disks. I'm looking to destroy most of them. Maybe archive a few. I'm looking to go from 50lbs of disks to less than 5. Hopefully less than 1.

So no mechanical solutions that anyone knows of? Thanks a shame. And it looks like I'll have to recondition a number of the disks. Seems they've taken more damage than I've expected on the spindle. I didn't consider how much they might spin after years of being moved around.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm not looking to sell the disks. I'm looking to destroy most of them. Maybe archive a few. I'm looking to go from 50lbs of disks to less than 5. Hopefully less than 1.

So no mechanical solutions that anyone knows of? Thanks a shame. And it looks like I'll have to recondition a number of the disks. Seems they've taken more damage than I've expected on the spindle. I didn't consider how much they might spin after years of being moved around.

There are certainly robots that will do what you want.

However, they're kind of pricey. Better to get 3-4 external USB CD drives, and do it manually. Faster too.

4 optical drives, a case of beer, and a free weekend, and you'll be good to go.

Source: Me. I did the same thing.

 

[DaveSimmons]

And it looks like I'll have to recondition a number of the disks. Seems they've taken more damage than I've expected on the spindle. I didn't consider how much they might spin after years of being moved around.

Interesting. I was thinking of moving my 1,000 CD collection from double jewel cases to cake boxes to save space, but it sounds like sleeves would be better.

I have them all ripped to lossless FLAC, but I don't want them trashed despite that.

 

[Charlie98]

4 optical drives, a case of beer, and a free weekend, and you'll be good to go.

Source: Me. I did the same thing.

I'm slowly doing the same thing with all my media. Over Christmas I converted all my 8mm video to digital... that was a beating... certainly more than a case of beer worth! :biggrin:

I ripped all my DVD's over a 4 month period... just a few a day... it all adds up.