Automated Transfer of Files on CD/DVD to hard drive? (not copyright violations!)

[SpuffMonkey]

I've been chatting to a friend of a friend who is a semi pro photographer (he does weddings and all that sort of stuff as well as his own arty stuff) and for most of the time he has archived the photos onto a mix of CDs and DVDs (I know I know!)

 

Now he wants to (due to some marital disharmony about the amount of space these are taking) transfer everything from those media onto a PC fitted with a load of drive space.

 

There are literally 100s (if not 1000s) of disks full of pics and video clips - does anyone here know of a bit of kit that can automatically transfer the data in biggish batches? As ever he doesn't want to cough a lot of cash - so a hire facility would be good. I had a google but couldn't see anything suitable - maybe someone here has done a similar thing?

[LeMarchand]

Don't know about a hardware solution - but surely it's possible to script something that would copy/ISO a disc on insertion, eject when done and then repeat. Would be a very boring weekend "feeding" the tray, though! Has he got kids that could be bribed?

[SpuffMonkey]

Don't know about a hardware solution - but surely it's possible to script something that would copy/ISO a disc on insertion, eject when done and then repeat. Would be a very boring weekend "feeding" the tray, though! Has he got kids that could be bribed?

 

Yeah - was trying to avoid that - I reckon on a rough average of 3-5 mins a disk, you're looking at a full day's work for each 100 disks - I'm not sure you could bribe enough to keep a kid at that for maybe the whole Easter hols without a break!

[jmak]

Something like this:

 

https://www.ripcaster.co.uk/node/1268

 

Alternatively, if you're anywhere near a university, enquire about similar services. My dad took dozens of open reel tapes to their data archiving service and for forty quid the put them all on a HDD.

[Arthur]

Now he wants to transfer everything from those media onto a PC fitted with a load of drive space.

I assume he is also planning on backing up the files somewhere else and not relying solely on the HDD(s) in that PC?

 

It would be annoying to go through all the effort of copying the data off of the discs only to have a drive fail or get encrypted by ransomware (especially after getting rid of the CDs/DVDs!).

 

Perhaps it would be worth getting a NAS?

 

http://paulstamatiou.com/storage-for-photographers-part-2/

[SpuffMonkey]

Something like this:

 

https://www.ripcaster.co.uk/node/1268

 

Alternatively, if you're anywhere near a university, enquire about similar services. My dad took dozens of open reel tapes to their data archiving service and for forty quid the put them all on a HDD.

 

Good call - cheers - I'll have a look

[SpuffMonkey]

I assume he is also planning on backing up the files somewhere else and not relying solely on the HDD(s) in that PC?

 

It would be annoying to go through all the effort of copying the data off of the discs only to have a drive fail or get encrypted by ransomware (especially after getting rid of the CDs/DVDs!).

 

Perhaps it would be worth getting a NAS?

 

 

http://paulstamatiou.com/storage-for-photographers-part-2/

 

Yeah - he's going for a PC with RAID 5 - which is better than nothing - some sort of unlimited cloud storage would be ideal - but I guess TBs of files can be quite expensive - I'll be having a look for him

[ricki]

Why not use a nas or a pair of nas's. You can backup or transfer to a buffalo with normal smb they can have raid on them and Bufallos have the option to backup to another nas if the data is very important.

 

Dvds done last for ever like somepeople think

 

Richard

[SpuffMonkey]

Why not use a nas or a pair of nas's. You can backup or transfer to a buffalo with normal smb they can have raid on them and Bufallos have the option to backup to another nas if the data is very important.

 

Dvds done last for ever like somepeople think

 

Richard

 

Cheers - yeah I know - however, the problem is not backing up the new storage - I can help with that - its the transfer in the first place