Sweet computer controlled cd organizer

[Byte]

Originally posted by: eugovector
If you want a data jukebox it's very simple:

1) Take $150 (or less) and buy yourself the biggest damn harddrive you can find for that money. 5400 would be find.

2) Install it in your computer or an external enclosure (USB2/Firewire)

3) Rip all your CDs down to image files and load them onto this harddrive.

4) Go to Daemon Tools and download.

5) Now, when you want to access one of your CDs, simply use Daemon Tools. As automatic as it gets, and cheaper than any plastic caddy system. Considering most CDs don't use the full 700MB capacity, you could store possible as many as 300 CDs on a 100GB HD.

6) Put all those nasty old CDs in a box under your bed.

Then when your hard drice crashes your SOL and gotta waste more time.

 

[policy11]

And how long would it take to rip 300 cds?

 

[damonpip]

I would agree with eugovector, a big hard drive would be a much better investment. It would be like 10x faster, and a lot more convienent. If it crashes... oh well, you still got the CDs, just have to rip it again (not too hard to do if you're at the comp anyways)

 

[eugovector]

300 cds X 6 minutes (max) = 30 hours. I've spent more time on my computer for less, plus it's not like you have to watch it spin. Go bake a cake.

And yes, in the unlikely event that your hard drive crashes, you must lather, rinse, and repeat. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but I'm less impressed by a rotating CD holder and more impressed by fast disk access, superior organization, and more bang for my buck.

 

[jellyjams]

Originally posted by: eugovector
If you want a data jukebox it's very simple:

1) Take $150 (or less) and buy yourself the biggest damn harddrive you can find for that money. 5400 would be find.

2) Install it in your computer or an external enclosure (USB2/Firewire)

3) Rip all your CDs down to image files and load them onto this harddrive.

4) Go to Daemon Tools and download.

5) Now, when you want to access one of your CDs, simply use Daemon Tools. As automatic as it gets, and cheaper than any plastic caddy system. Considering most CDs don't use the full 700MB capacity, you could store possible as many as 300 CDs on a 100GB HD.

6) Put all those nasty old CDs in a box under your bed.

Thanks for that link...I've been looking for it for about a year (I read about it somewhere but after a while I just couldn't recall where it was located).

As far as the tower or donut, I looked at them right after Xmas 2001 and almost picked up one just for the geek factor. But I usually give things some extra thought (limited tech budget :frown: ). Decided to get a phat HD and a 1394 external housing instead just for my mp3's. At that time Tiger and some other onlines was running it at an introductory price of $79.99. Here's my idea that someone that picks up one may want to do; I'm into case modding, so I was going to yank off the sides and plexi it and throw in some lights (leds). That could look real geeky along side a nice mod!

 

[jellyjams]

This may be just a little off the beaten path, but while reading through the thread I noticed some of the arguments referred to HD crashes (if you read my first reply you'll see that I do see a use for this item). But back to the HD crashes; I've been messing around with computers pretty heavy since the 80's. Most of the HD's I've used have been Maxtor and Western Digital (I strickly use WD's now). But I have never had a HD crash. Have I just been lucky or blessed or a little of both? One of the replies stated that why not just put all your CD's on HD and then mentioned the pluses of this method. The retort was "...what happens when your HD crashes...?" Do HD crashes happen so often that it should be factored into a decision when the software is something other than important data ?

 

[ViperV990]

Originally posted by: dethman

Originally posted by: PuckMan
<a class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.tipsdr.com/3B156-1002%20P.html" target=blank>Link</A>

Okay, I found the one with 150 disks for about the same price. It is cheap looking and does not have a slot for each disk, but it is twice the capacity for the same price. No mention of the software, but it says that you need a CD-ROM and 16MB of disk space to install the sucker, so, there must be some software included!

"Each unit can store up to 150 DVD/CD-R/CDs with a maximum of 19,050 of them when 127 units are linked by computer USB hubs."

LOL

Keep in mind the 127-unit-limit only applies to ONE single USB root port. With 4, 6 or even 8 USB ports, your computer can handle up to 152,400 discs!! No enough? PCI USB cards here I come

 

[Johneverd]

Originally posted by: PuckMan
<a class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.tipsdr.com/3B156-1002%20P.html" target=blank>Link</A>

Okay, I found the one with 150 disks for about the same price. It is cheap looking and does not have a slot for each disk, but it is twice the capacity for the same price. No mention of the software, but it says that you need a CD-ROM and 16MB of disk space to install the sucker, so, there must be some software included!

HEREs a review. Nice toy, and it does have a database that will track all of the files.

 

[policy11]

Originally posted by: eugovector
300 cds X 6 minutes (max) = 30 hours. I've spent more time on my computer for less, plus it's not like you have to watch it spin. Go bake a cake.

And yes, in the unlikely event that your hard drive crashes, you must lather, rinse, and repeat. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but I'm less impressed by a rotating CD holder and more impressed by fast disk access, superior organization, and more bang for my buck.

rofl