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I have bought 1000 blank CDs without spindle. Are those empty spindles to store CDs available on the market?

I need to store 3000 CDs after writing and I don't know how to do it.

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Well, how did you get them ? I mean, what were they packed in ? Why not just leave them in that ? – ldigas May 21 '10 at 2:38
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@Idigas: it sounds like they were shrink-wrapped without spindles. – rob May 21 '10 at 16:49
@rob - Well, why not leave them shrink wrapped then? (Although, admittedly, I cannot imagine why would you write 3000 cds and then leave then around ... usually you ship them afterwards). – ldigas Feb 14 '12 at 22:20

3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

Use a wooden dowel from Lowe's or a similar store. They're cheap and will do exactly what you want, just put the dowel through all the holes in the CDs and hang it up somewhere.

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This is a good solution for thousands of CDs. I couldn't imagine having hundreds of those little spindle things laying around... – Corey May 21 '10 at 2:17
@Marcus: good idea :) @Corey: 3000/100=30. Also, it's worth noting that the more spindles/wall dowels you have, the easier random access will be. – rob May 21 '10 at 16:50
Taking a stack off the top of a dowel or spindle takes about the same amount of effort whether there are 60 or 2000 cds being moved, and one long dowel would be easier because you don't have to figure out which spindle the disk is on. – marcusw May 21 '10 at 17:30
@Marcusw: conceptually the amount of effort might seem like it's similar, but in reality it is not. Suppose you have 2001 CDs and need to get to the one in the very middle. If you only have one dowel, you need to count and move 1000 CDs--at a rate of 2/second (which is a pretty optimistic estimate), it would take over 8 minutes. If you have them in stacks of 100, you just grab the top CD off the 11th stack. If you labeled your stacks, it takes about 2 seconds. Unlabeled, maybe 6 or 7 seconds. – rob Feb 15 '12 at 1:26
(cont'd) Worst-case scenario for finding a CD in the latter case (2001 CDs divided into stacks of 100) might be finding number 1050--the middle CD in the 11th stack. Assuming the same counting speed as before (2 things per second), that's 5.5s to find the right stack, and 25s to find the CD--30.5 seconds total. Of course, there are all sorts of things you can do to boost your lookup speed, like creating an index, but physically moving 1000 CDs would still require a lot more effort than moving 50. – rob Feb 15 '12 at 1:39
up vote 3 down vote

if they're for permanent archive purposes then I'd recommend 1000 CD Binders that stand upright, or a closing case like THIS. Putting 3000 CDs on a dowel and hanging them somewhere is probably asking for trouble if it's a long term thing.

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That certainly beats mine on the geek-awesomeness factor, but look at the price... – marcusw May 21 '10 at 12:58
up vote 1 down vote

Try posting a Wanted ad on Craigslist or Freecycle to see if anyone will donate their old spindles to you to store your CDs. If you lived near me, I'd be thrilled to get rid of mine!

You could also use a multimedia shelf--without the cases, you could hold a huge number of CDs!

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