Help me find CD storage
I haven't been able to properly organize my CDs since I moved. This sucks to no end, but there are no decent solutions available. I'm quite desperate to get them put in some proper place where they'll be out of the way and easy to access, but this has proven difficult because furniture manufacturers are obsessed with towers.
I don't want a CD tower. They're a nice choice for some situations but not for me. Plus, anything that orients the CDs horizontally does so by separating them and leaving lots of room for dust, and they're also a pain to get in and out of the slots. What I want is a bookcase-style thing where I can orient CDs vertically, but even there all I can seem to find are incredibly tall units. Tall is bad because I have an electric baseboard heater (not used) to contend with, so stability is kind of a high priority. I want something lower and wider, probably even deeper, more like a small bookcase. Is that so freaking difficult?
My sister pointed me to ginnys.com where they have the closest thing yet to what I want: An Ottoman that holds 300 CDs. It might even be a good place for a cat to sit and curl up. Problem: It's expensive, and it's still not all that ideal for my needs. I am very willing, however, to consider something with drawers, since that would have depth enough to solve part of the stability problem.
So if anyone has ideas for furniture that will fit the bill, please speak up.
I don't want a CD tower. They're a nice choice for some situations but not for me. Plus, anything that orients the CDs horizontally does so by separating them and leaving lots of room for dust, and they're also a pain to get in and out of the slots. What I want is a bookcase-style thing where I can orient CDs vertically, but even there all I can seem to find are incredibly tall units. Tall is bad because I have an electric baseboard heater (not used) to contend with, so stability is kind of a high priority. I want something lower and wider, probably even deeper, more like a small bookcase. Is that so freaking difficult?
My sister pointed me to ginnys.com where they have the closest thing yet to what I want: An Ottoman that holds 300 CDs. It might even be a good place for a cat to sit and curl up. Problem: It's expensive, and it's still not all that ideal for my needs. I am very willing, however, to consider something with drawers, since that would have depth enough to solve part of the stability problem.
So if anyone has ideas for furniture that will fit the bill, please speak up.
Posted by Lummox JR on Thursday, December 04, 2008 09:52PM
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#20 Lummox JR:
I'm not really interested in something that requires me to remove the discs from their cases though. Basically I just want a CD shelf of dimensions that are more realistic to what I'm working with than a tower would provide.
Saturday, July 25, 2009 10:30PM
#19 Nick231:
Don't know if you ever found a solution for this, but saw a link to an interesting system for storage linked on Ctrl-alt-del yesterday.
http://www.mmdesign.com/
Would of course have to stash the jewel cases for the stuff somewhere else but it looks like a pretty decent storage solution.
Saturday, July 25, 2009 02:04PM
#18 PineSlayer:
http://www.flipworks.com/ has media trays for existing furniture. Might be something there.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 04:10AM
#17 digitalmouse:
Elation wrote:
> Lummox JR I recommend HD-DVDs, they'll be perfect!
still doesn't answer his furniture needs! :P
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 03:05AM
#16 Elation:
Lummox JR I recommend HD-DVDs, they'll be perfect!
Monday, December 15, 2008 09:42AM
#15 Lummox JR:
Risk of loss is still a concern there, but ease of access still favors physical CDs as that's the only media I can bring into my car and I don't want to just keep burning CD-Rs for every occasion. But anyway as I've already said, I prefer physical CDs. I want to actually get the CD out, and be able to see the jacket art and lyrics if I want. Switching to digital storage does not address my needs. I'm looking for suggestions for physical storage, not praise for the almighty iPod. "Transfer it all to digital media" is not a suggestion; it's a change of topic, and one I've already explicitly rejected.
A good analogy is if I was looking for bookshelves and someone said to just put everything on a Kindle. Yes I know, it's not quite the same because it's relatively easy (aside from the ridiculous time investment) to transfer CDs to digital media, but at best it's an idea a person could try if they were interested and found it feasible. But these days, solutions along the lines of digital storage can be assumed to have been considered and rejected if they go unmentioned; the Amish don't use blogs. By asking where to go about finding good furniture for easy access to CDs one can reasonbly infer that 1) I like having easy access to CDs, and 2) whether I use digital media heavily or not I still want the old-fashioned solution. In fact it's entirely possible for a person to have transferred everything to digital format and still want to keep the originals in a place where they're easy to get at.
Monday, December 15, 2008 08:56AM
#14 digitalmouse:
Lummox JR wrote:
> Burning to alternate media is not a solution. That's like some penguin-thumper responding to a Windows annoyance with a suggestion to switch to Linux. FAIL.
That's a bit of a heavy-handed view since HDD technology and capacity improves almost exponentially each year or two. I would think that ease-of-access to your data would be higher up the list of needs, over furniture for the data. It's certainly not a 'penguin-thumper' line of reasoning.
Most decent external hard disks are beginning to reach the same shelf-life as a CD/DVD if you take care of them.
I was a collector of CDs/DVDs at one point (250+ at last count), but after getting a 750GB USB2.0 HDD that is about the same size of a box of CD-Rs, I prefer to carry that around than a stack of DVDs. And it takes up far less space on the desk!
Monday, December 15, 2008 08:23AM
#13 Lummox JR:
Burning to alternate media is not a solution. That's like some penguin-thumper responding to a Windows annoyance with a suggestion to switch to Linux. FAIL.
I happen to like physical CDs. I like having access to the disc jackets for lyrics if I want. I like being able to quickly grab them to take into my car. I just need a way to store them effectively where I can get at them.
Saturday, December 13, 2008 10:32PM
#12 KodeNerd:
As Flame Sage said, use ISO. Just make sure to back it up. Terabyte HDDs are not extremely expensive anymore.
Or you can burn the ISOs to DVD discs.
George Gough
Saturday, December 13, 2008 10:15PM
#11 Tiberath:
Flame Sage wrote:
> Forget CD storage, just make everything into ISO's, then you can store them in a Virtual CD Storage Unit :D
And if on that rare occasion your hard drive crashes? That leaves you pretty boned.
Besides, I don't know about other people, but I can't stand leaving unnecessary files like that on my computer. If I torrent something, I burn it to two discs and delete the iso.
Friday, December 05, 2008 06:30PM
#10 Flame Sage:
Forget CD storage, just make everything into ISO's, then you can store them in a Virtual CD Storage Unit :D
Friday, December 05, 2008 03:18PM
#9 Nadrew:
I've been using milk crates for my CD (and other item) storage for years, it's not pretty but they work really well and can be stacked.
Friday, December 05, 2008 10:03AM
#8 Lummox JR:
DC, thanks for those links. The first one is a decent choice for me height-wise, though I fear it may be minimal in terms of storage. The second link is too big; I'm thinking of something maybe 4' wide at most, and also under $200. The rack one actually would fit my needs for storage, and I've seen it in stores, but it's ugly as anything--I'd really prefer wood shelves if feasible.
The "lock it up" cabinet looks like the best deal. I can't tell unfortunately from the second link (Prepac) how many CDs that holds; according to other sites it seems to be almost 400 CDs.
Of course, the issue with ordering furniture online is that shipping will probably be expensive. The seller offering that Prepac cabinet cheap says that shipping is roughly 97 cents per pound, which is about $56 in that case. Yipe.
Nick, DIY shelves won't suit me. For one thing I don't want anything quite so permanent as wall-mounted shelves in case I want to move them later, and I couldn't use shellac or paint at home no matter what because my wife has MCS. The factory-applied varnish from the DVD shelves I assembled last weekend is still offgassing.
Friday, December 05, 2008 07:30AM
#7 Elation:
Here's your "solution" - 3 planks of wood.
Friday, December 05, 2008 04:58AM
#6 Nick231:
Shelves with some bookends would allow you to avoid the baseboard heater, as well as allowing you to fit it exactly to the area you want. Building one isn't too difficult skill/time wise (and space wouldn't be an issue).Home Depot/Loews/etc. I believe will do the edges of the wood for you to give them a nicer look. Then all you need is some shellac or paint. The do have shelf kits though where all you really need to do is screw the brackets on and then attach to the wall.
Various "Storage Solutions" could work too (The solid ones, not the tiny metal bar ones). Closetmaid comes to mind, Home depot and Loews, even Walmart carry similar stuff.
Thursday, December 04, 2008 11:05PM
#5 DarkCampainger:
You didn't mention materials or price ranges, but a quick poke through Amazon dug up these possible candidates:
CD / DVD Storage Unit with Black Finish (Cap 216)
Venture Horizon Double Wide Tape Storage Oak (Expensive little bugger)
Atlantic 3533-5009 Elf Jr. Multimedia Rack (No cat room, but functional and cheap)
*Edit*
Here's another:
CD / DVD/ VHS 376 "Lock It Up" Storage Cabinet in Oak Finish
*Edit* Cheaper version: http://www.amazon.com/Prepac-Small-Locking-Storage-Cabinet/ dp/B001KW0CPA/ref=sr_1_89/ 177-4380131-2187312?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1228460413&sr=1-89
Thursday, December 04, 2008 10:54PM
(Edited on Thursday, December 04, 2008 11:01PM)
#4 Xooxer:
Two words:
Salvation Army.
Thursday, December 04, 2008 10:52PM
#3 Abel Nightroad:
Might I suggest a possibly CD album or two? They come in various sizes depending on where you buy them and can hold a good amount of music. And as far as easy to access they are good at that to.
I'm not certain on one of the bookshelves you're talking about here because I've never owned one although I've seen them but Tib's idea is also good.
Hope you find a solution to this, Lummox.
Thursday, December 04, 2008 10:48PM
#2 Lummox JR:
I don't really have any workshop space--nor time, nor skill--in which to build such a case.
Thursday, December 04, 2008 10:29PM
#1 Tiberath:
If you own a hammer and some nails and know how to use them, making a book case thing how you want wouldn't be that difficult.
The CD rack things the towers use (to hold and separate the CD's) can be bought in stores, it'd only be a matter of building them into a bookcase type thing vertically, so you get your book effect. This way the dimensions are your play things, and the materials are considerably cheaper.
Personally, we don't even bother with the CD cases. We use something not all that different fron this and an Excel SpreadSheet to keep track of CD Keys and disc locations. Simple, effective, easy.
Thursday, December 04, 2008 10:10PM