Data Hoarder

Buy > rip > give to me

I’ve got a similar situation. In an apartment with limited storage and just want to eliminate the storage I have. My main suggestion - double backup everything you want to keep. I’ve already lost one backup early on but luckily had a backup to that.

Regret will happen - it did when I got rid of some CDs. But the relief of having the extra free space more than makes up for that.

The 80’s 12” singles I have are all transferred to digital with multiple backups. I have an 80’s music show ready for syndication so I can’t lose that (I kept the 600 or so 12” singles).

But then there’s the 350 “blank” VHS tapes loaded with network TV shows from the mid-80’s to the mid-00’s. They’re bulky, heavy & take up 6 big storage bins - so they need to go. Many have never aired beyond the original airing, never been released in any format (including streaming) and most can’t even be found on YouTube. It’s not lost media, it’s more like next-to-impossible to find currently unreleased media. I’ve spent time over the last few months transferring my favorites to digital. That will be double backed up. Fun times lol.

Yeah like 10 years ago

I have two boxes of burned CDRs, that I've replaced with better rips. Remember DiVX? Fit a 90 minute movie on a 700MB disc with obvious artifacting even at SD resolutions. Still can't bring myself to get rid of them.

Checked a few of them a couple years ago and they all still worked. Taiyo Yuden made good stuff.

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If they have cases I pay .50 on blu ray and .15 on dvd. The binder discs are pretty much garbage but .05 a piece seems reasonable. Prices are in CAD. No one has room for clutter it seems. Good thing I have a warehouse.

Used to be the case in some countries that physical media is proof you have purchased legally. Even if you just keep the disks on a spindle (aka the spindles from writable media packs). This is how i keep my original media in the back of the cupboard.

I'm in the process of throwing everything away. I have got a digital copy(s) of all my content and even remasters of DVD media. I don't even have a DVD player.

I tried selling it on market place and it's not getting any offers. Time for the bin.

I backed all mine up and sold it. I can't justify dedicating a whole room in my house to media when I can fit it all on a few hard drives.

I live in a small apartment (40 m², about 430 sqft), and I still like to buy physical media (although that doesn't mean everything I own has to be on physical media).

For me it's mostly music (~700 CDs, ~500 LPs), and a handful of DVDs/BluRays. I guess I just like to have that stuff around me. If Amazon/Netflix/Spotify/Deezer/whatever other streaming services there are all shut down tomorrow I don't even care...

Box up the media and store it away if you got space. There’s are prob more worthless stuff in a box somewhere than media. Do whatever let you sleep better at night.

Don't buy books/video/music on physical media unless it's hard/impossible to get a digital version. But also don't rely on IP subscription services either. The Cloud is great as part of a backup strategy: but not as an exclusive service that could gate your access to your content.

Digital storage is great because it can hold anything: books, shows, games, whatever. And it can be easily copied, and sent around the world. Have some space you own: redundant and automatically backed-up to a Cloud service... then enjoy it for years. It will feed your ebook readers and media players and homelab devices for a long time, and take up almost no space.

I still keep my hundreds of books and thousands of vinyl records even though I consume almost everything electronically. There’s something to be said for not having your entire culture locked up in small grey anonymous boxes.

I didn't 'throw out' my DVD collection, but I did get rid of over 90% of it. Back when Hastings was still in business, I took all of it to them for a 'buy back' (knowing I'd only get pennies on my dollar). I only kept the physical media of things I re-watch often (and have re-watched since I got rid of the rest of the titles).

I went from two cheap multi-shelf Walmart DVD shelves down to a single shelf. Everything else is stored on my Plex server (which is also my NAS), which itself is just a PC with a built in 8-bay 3.5" hotswap cage. :)

I haven't owned a CD/DVD in at least a decade.

I gave away most of my DVDs to a couple who live on a mountain with no internets, I gave away most of my CDs to a music hoarder.

I found myself in a loop where I'd rip all of my physical media, then rarely consume any of it, then some new format would come out, I'd get larger drives and re-rip everything, and rarely consume it. I had to break the cycle.

I never really like rewatching stuff so I never really had a collection, sold all my cds for pennies a decade ago.

i'm moved from video (dvd/blu/4kblu) to vinyl as my financial disaster hobby

will be selling off my large collection of movies early in the new year, including a large criterion collection mostly unopened

I threw away my DVDs years back. With >1200 physical books in my 650sq ft apartment, I'm thinking of getting rid of some genre paperbacks, and replacing them with electronic versions. I've got a ton of collectible hardbacks, which I'll keep forever.

Only beta and VHS tapes, except for those that were never released on anything else.

I dumped all my CD-Rs and DVD-Rs ages ago as we don’t have a physical player any more, not including game consoles.

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

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.

Yeah if you are not a collector who wants to display their collection it makes no sense to hold on to the physical media. As long as you have digital backups (3-2-1).

I assume hard drives are not considered "physical" for some reason?

I purged hundreds of DVDs when I moved, movies and series I was confident I'd never rewatch, or that would be easy to find on Blu-Ray.

I still occasionally buy used DVDs, mainly foreign films and series, and mountain bike or fmx videos.

I need to do the same with my CDs. And make backups of the rare ones in case of disc rot. Vinyl likewise; but those won't be given away.

Hard drives fail in a few years. Factory printed dvd blue rays and burned M disc dont fail, right? So, you just by new and larger hard drives every 10 years?

I did throw out boxes and put them all in a folder. Saved tons of space. Simply could not keep them all like they were

Thrown out? I don't understand. What does that mean?

Yep, tossed hundreds of discs. Most of them were "backups" of Netflix discs, but they are long gone.

MY GF has the same problem. Huge physical media collection, tiny living space. She was on the verge of throwing it out/ donating it after I set up an Emby server for her, but managed to reach a compromise instead. Disc binders.

While still taking up space, they are much smaller than normal DVD cases and you still have them for backup.

I'm the opposite. I find it particularly inconvenient not having discs to simply pop on a player.

I use a couple of streaming services but those really are just a video on demand channel.

I have a few mp3's here and there, lol many on dvd-r but finding those when they are scattered about then writing to a spare flash drive just to stick in the player to watch is just a bit inconvenient.

Use a hdd? Well I could if I had the time to collect everything together and find a hdd and a caddy but I simply cba.

Basically the primary source for video and audio in my hoard is off optical media itself. And I'm adding more and more, so will be getting a couple of Billy shelves in the new year.

I got rid of all my books. Never really had dvd/bluray.

Unlikely to get rid of photos as Id have to digitize all the old stuff and physical copies are a pretty good backup…

I tossed vinyl, VHS, cassettes, 8mm, miniDV, CDs, and DVDs. I also tossed all photos negatives and prints.

I don't throw out anything. I keep physical and digital media. Of course, I have a lot of rooms to store it.

Implying there was physical media to begin with. yarrrr lol but for real im debating it. I have 4 boxes of dvd's in the closet I havent touched since 2 house moves ago and I dont even have an optical drive in house at the moment (this moment has been since 2020 when I pulled a bluray drive out of my tower to make room for a 8x 2.5 drive dock for another raid)

My shelves are full of anime figurines. I don't have space to store DVDs.

I moved back in April to a much smaller place. I am having a hard time parting with over 2500 Blurays and 4k's. On top of that thousands more of "collector" Steelbooks and custom sets from places like Nova, FilmArena, HDZeta, Manta Lab etc.

I used to have a spare bedroom dedicated to movie stuff with all my media on Billy Bookshelves and special editions and movie parapharnelia shelved and on display. Now it's all in boxes.
I have it all ripped 1:1 on my Media server plus backups but can't get myself to rid of the physical media.

I think this is a problem many people have, buying stuff for the sake of it without actually being interested in it. You have to plan for a physical library, it will take space and if you live in a small apartment you will need to make compromises or completely change the way you store your discs. If you stack the boxes on top of each other that would be the most efficient use of space. Then you can have 1000 movies and shows stacked in a 25x15cm area with the discs in a spindle or two.

But to answer your post, don't fall into the digital trap. If you have physical media and the means to store it do so. Otherwise downsize your library and keep what you can since you've ripped a lot of it. The question becomes, do you buy a $200 8TB drive or a $200 shelf as a showpiece? If you can guarantee your data is safe then sell after ripping. Otherwise the only way you can guarantee you have access to your favourite shows in future is if you take actions to do so. Like owning a physical library.

Look at what just happened to Sony. They had a deal with the discovery network and after discovery merged with their new parent company they revoked Sony's rights to license and sell their shows meaning everyone who purchased discovery shows like Mythbusters through the PS Store has now lost access to it without compensation. The same thing happened to the Nintendo DS and will happen to the 3DS next year. The closure of all communications to Nintendo's servers so if you bought the digital versions you are fucked and will have to resort to homebrew to reclaim what was once yours.

Which is why even before they stopped digital transactions I had already dumped all my Pokemon carts and updates including saves. So even if my 2DS XL breaks in future I still have access to roms of my physical cartridges with Citra as an alternative to a console if I can't ever find another second hand.

In a digital world full of greedy and monopolistic companies, only You can guarantee your rights of ownership and access.

I kept all my CD’s from the 90’s that have sentimental value because those are my high school and college years. I used to look at the band photos and lyrics in the liner notes all the time

Since 2000 I’ve been ripping CDs the moment I buy them and look the liner notes once and then it goes in the closet. I sold or donated almost all of those unless it was from a band I liked from the 90’s or some kind of collector’s edition

Same for DVDs. I ripped them all and kept about 10%

Same for my National Geographic magazines. I kept about 10 and I have the entire collection on my computer back to 1888

Buy > Rip > Donate to thrift store. This way I can make someone else happy.

I never got much to begin with so it isn't really a problem to hold on to most of it.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

I never understood people that say physical media takes too much space. It's literally a binder or two.

Chuck the boxes, keep the sleeves.

I am defo considering selling my DVDs and probably blurays after ripping them. I can play them on the PS4 but since I'm putting everything on Plex now, playing physical is just extra steps.

I also have over 300 DVDs here, I'll rip and then get rid of them. It uses too much p. space too. Will donate what I can too.