Filing CD's

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Forgive me if this topic has already been covered in past posts, but as an amateur GTDer I'm trying to decide what has been most helpful for filing data CD's & Software, etc. Do you all have separate A-Z "cabinet" for CD's or do you just make a manila folder file for the CD and reference it with everything else?

Thanks in advance,
Charlie
 
Dump or File

Don't know if this is a good solution. It works for me.

All CDs go into a "Body Glove" CD holders (there are lots of makes available. I like Body glove) which take about 60 CDs. They are simply labelled using a CD market pen and filed as follows.

1. Software and archieve data files - random (it takes me less time to flick and find than it does to sort by alpha or date)

2. Backup data - 3 sections (grandfather, father and son) sorted by alpha name/date

3. Software manuals - useful ones (bookshelf), others (dump), warranty and licences (file in A-Z folders)

Hope this is useful. I'm interested to see how others do it.
 
I keep mine separate from the filing cabinet. I use software called SuperCat. It indexes the CD and I give the index a title. Mostly it's just CD###. Then I label the cd with CD### and file them in numerical order in a plastic shoebox. I also use the CaseLogic CD Sleeves that hold 2 CDs in the same space as one of the hard plastic slimline cases. I have about 120 CDs in a shoebox this way. When I need something, I type in a keyword or a filename and SuperCat comes back with all the CDs matching it. I have a lot of duplicates backed up, but life's too much fun to consolidate them. I'm just happy I can find something. LOL

Good luck!
Elena
 
CD indexing software

I am wondering if anyone else has experience with SuperCat or other indexing software for CD's and other removeable media?

Elena said:
I keep mine separate from the filing cabinet. I use software called SuperCat. It indexes the CD and I give the index a title. Mostly it's just CD###. Then I label the cd with CD### and file them in numerical order in a plastic shoebox. I also use the CaseLogic CD Sleeves that hold 2 CDs in the same space as one of the hard plastic slimline cases. I have about 120 CDs in a shoebox this way. When I need something, I type in a keyword or a filename and SuperCat comes back with all the CDs matching it. I have a lot of duplicates backed up, but life's too much fun to consolidate them. I'm just happy I can find something. LOL

Good luck!
Elena
Click to expand...
 
What's the shelf life of a CD?

How often would you expect to go back to your CD and re-access them?

I recently found about 100 data floppy disks in a box. All neatly labelled and catalogued - never ever used them!!! What a waste of time.
 
What if your hard disk crashed, or your computer was stolen? That 'waste of time' box of CDs would suddenly shoot up in value from 'worthless' to 'worth its weight in gold'.
 
I love SuperCat. I first used it about 5 years ago. I've tried many others since, but I always come back to SC.

I keep some discs in sleeves in a zip-up binder. This particular type of sleeve touches only 1/2 the surface of the disc. I keep this set of CDs accessible as a set, in case of emergency. For the rest I buy slim jewel cases. They're inexpensive in bulk. Then the jewel cases go in plastic shoeboxes or something else that's protective, since jewel cases crack easily.

I've often done computer work professionally, and sometimes we're the worst about backing things up. But everybody learns eventually, the hard way. These days backing up can be so automated we have no excuses any more. Hard disks are cheap; you can mirror your drive once a week, and offload your data regularly onto CDs.

There is nothing like losing access to one or all of your hard drives and finding that you did indeed back up enough to get yourself going again. That positive experience (perhaps mixed with some times when you lose everything) will make backing up things a priority.
 
The comment about the 100 floppy disks wasn't meant to discourage backups - silly!

The point was that after a grandfather, father, son set of backups for data + originals and backups of master disks what else do you REALLY need.

I can imagine many people have draws / shevles and files full of obsolete data and software - sad.

Whats the D work in GTD - oh yes it's DUMP!
 
Very true.

If you've been using computers for a long time, you have different versions of programs, operating systems, etc. Old data often requires old progs and OSs to be readable. However, the DUMP point is well taken. Programs I didn't use very much (with their data) and the like will be a joy to toss, along with zip disks and floppies.

My real hurdle, though, is yard-high stacks of paper. I have a friend who also has been paper-intensive (academic), who devoted a month to scanning and discarding paper. She is a happy camper. I expect more of us will follow suit in time, thus requiring even more CDs and a good way to track of them.
 
In my experience, storing data in holders that contact the disk is only bad if you pull the disk out often. In that case, absolutely, keep the disks in jewel boxes. If you don't expect to use them that much, however, sleeves in a case are fine. I still have a backup disk of some old OS versions that are way obsolete (hmm, guess I should purge ;)) but still work. If they are sitting on the shelf and not moving a lot they should not incur much wear. Again, that's my experience, YMMV. Of course make sure that there are not any other disks in the holder that you do pull out, that movement does cause some wear on the disks that you don't use a lot.

A more interesting problem is data loss through oxidation of the disk, which I don't have any experience with. Its given rise to gold CDs, gold being resistant to oxidation. As you might expect, its pricey.

Finally, for you ipodders (what are they called?) out there, there is this:

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portableaudio/podlock-025358.php

I can imaging keeping a 650-700 MB partition on my Ipod (if I had one) and backing up to CD occassionally. Could be a neat solution.
 
It's not just movement that causes problems when the disk is in contact with the holder. The holder may be made of a material that reacts with the disk surface, so if they're in contact with each other (especially in humid environments) any chemical decay of the disk may be accelerated. Another possibility is that the holder may become stuck to the disk surface, and damage may occur when you try to separate them.

If you're storing disks with the expectation of reading them later, you might as well store them correctly to minimise data loss.
 
Too true about the long-time users and the evolution of media.

At some time in the past I consolidated anything I wanted to keep from diskettes to a Iomega Zip drive disks (100 meg each), then to CD, then to DVD, then to portable HDD after they became affordable.

So anyone want to pick up an Iomega Zip drive and a bunch of disks? :mrgreen:
 
Anonymous;23533 said:
Forgive me if this topic has already been covered in past posts, but as an amateur GTDer I'm trying to decide what has been most helpful for filing data CD's & Software, etc. Do you all have separate A-Z "cabinet" for CD's or do you just make a manila folder file for the CD and reference it with everything else?

Thanks in advance,
Charlie
Click to expand...

I have a couple of CD drawers in which each CD is filed in a sleeve. The sleeves are numbered 1-120 and I keep a list of the CD at each slot. My DVD and Blu-Ray collections are stored in large 320 disc capacity CD/DVD wallets (this saves metres of shelf space). I use DVD Profiler to assign a volume and slot to each e.g A-52.3 (there are 4 to a page). Print a list, put the wallet on the shelf and all the original covers in a box in the shed.

In both cases I have a list system that tracks where something is. I don't care if Pinocchio comes after Mary Poppins because the list tells me where they are. New items are all added in one place - the end of the list.

David
 
whitesco;70046 said:
At some time in the past I consolidated anything I wanted to keep from diskettes to a Iomega Zip drive disks (100 meg each), then to CD, then to DVD, then to portable HDD after they became affordable.
Click to expand...

Laughing, I can beat that I finally trashed my old washing machine style hard drive circa 1980 a few years ago. I have 8 inch floppies, 5.25 inch floppies, 3.5 inch floppies, bernoulli drives, zip drives, optical drives, hard drives of all sizes and form factors, heck I even still have some punch card programs and old green lined paper printouts of stuff. And I have experienced the CD/DVD corrosion problems that look like worms eating into the data making disks unreadable. The media are not stable in spite of what folks say.

More important than media stability is the data migration issue.

If you decide on a computer method of filing paperwork via scanning etc. then you also need to set up a data migration path. That means that every few years or so or whenever a major new technology comes out, (media or software) before the old drives and software packages no longer work, you must update and migrate your data to either the new application or new media or both.

This is a big issue for historical societies who are digitizing historical photos and documents. Often times there is grant money for collection but none for on-going maintenance of digital collections. And digital media must be maintained just like physical media.

Personally I am slowly scanning a huge backlog of paper files that I am required by the federal government to keep for 10 years or longer. I already have in place a long term plan to read and evaluate all the CD's every 2-3 years both for readability and for data migration issues. The plan is written down with instructions on what to look at but what I migrate too is not defined yet since it will depend on what is available at review time.
 
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