Tech Question: ISO Project

[BoxWhatBox]

My company literally has thousands of cds/dvds that we want to convert to ISO, catalog, and archive. Right now, we have interns doing it by hand and its taking forever.

I've looked all over the net and haven't found anything as straightforward as a DVD carousel that I could just hook to the computer.

Does anyone know of a good hardware appliance I can load 50 - 100 DVDs that I can attach to a computer run and a script to copy/convert our disks?

I'm really trying to avoid building something inferior from scratch.

 

[BoxWhatBox]

Alternatively, I would be open to buying a 10 - 15 bay disk enclosure that I could load up with DVD drives and connect via esata or usb. If anyone has any recommendations, I would really appreciate it.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm guessing something like this is what you'd want? Holds 100 discs, and you can chain several units to store up to 500! All accessible via USB, and I have to say they aren't that expensive.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'm guessing something like this is what you'd want? Holds 100 discs, and you can chain several units to store up to 500! All accessible via USB, and I have to say they aren't that expensive.

As far as I can tell from the description, that unit doesn't play the discs; it only stores them.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm guessing something like this is what you'd want? Holds 100 discs, and you can chain several units to store up to 500! All accessible via USB, and I have to say they aren't that expensive.

As far as I can tell from the description, that unit doesn't play the discs; it only stores them.

It's kind of unclear, but I think you may be right.

Looking around, it seems that's how just about all of them work: they store the discs and catalog them into software for your PC, but don't actually allow you to read the discs from the PC--you have to eject them and put them in a standard drive. WTF?

It looks like what the OP wants doesn't really exist.

 

[EricF]

You may have already found these if you've been searching, most are still single bay solutions, which isn't going to speed things up, but I suppose some might have elegant interfaces or the suppliers might do something a bit more bespoke (most are small suppliers)

* http://www.academycomputerservice.com/vj.htm
* http://www.virtualcd-online.com/vcd/apps/overview/network.cfm?lg=0
* http://www.forbiddenhistory.co.uk/storageworld/products/dvd/jukebox.htm
* http://www.avantisworld.com/02_cddvdservers.asp
* http://www.kintronics.com/CDRT7.HTML
* http://www.amsstorage.com/ams-dakotaraid-lp.php
* http://www.cddimensions.com/cdd-7-dvd-net.html

From my own experience I'd try contacting a few educational IT suppliers, that's often where I've seen multiple towers, etc for serving interactive CDs etc over the network.

You might well find the easiest solution is just to grab a cheap enclosure (http://www.span.com/ are good for this, give them a call, always been friendly in the past) and sling a few sata dvd drive in and hook them up via estata (span sell controllers and infiniband style cabling) to your machine, at least as you say you can script ripping half a dozen at a time.

 

[JarodRussell]

I had a hifi unit once with a 50 disc cartridge. There's gotta be something like that for non-music discs.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I had a hifi unit once with a 50 disc cartridge. There's gotta be something like that for non-music discs.

You would think, but I couldn't find any. Those that could hook up to a computer did nothing but index the data and let you search for a specific disc--which you'd then pop out and put in the computer's own drive. Ridiculous.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There must be a solution on the market surely - it would be analogous to the bulk data robotic tape archival solutions used on large-value system installations.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

There must be a solution on the market surely - it would be analogous to the bulk data robotic tape archival solutions used on large-value system installations.

Your post reminded me of the correct term to use for this: jukebox!

I found this company. It seems they produce exactly what the OP is looking for. No prices are listed, but they have units holding 145, 285, 260, 415, and 605 discs. Should be possible to load one up with discs and script it to run through and rip ISOs for each one.

 

[BoxWhatBox]

This is the solution I am probably going to end up buying (although I think the price is steep).

http://www.addonics.com/products/st9bdves.php

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Maybe I'm missing something, but the unit you linked is designed for mass-duplication of discs, not reading several at once. If you don't need to duplicate the discs, just rip ISOs, then a "jukebox" unit from the site I linked would be more suitable.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Yeah, jukeboxes is the term I was struggling to remember.

The NSM DVD jukeboxes have RS 232 or SCSI-2 control interfaces, which might be an issue. The Addonics would allow reading of discs in parallel but someone's still got to feed in the discs correctly and on cue.

 

[BoxWhatBox]

The Addonics style solution is not optimum, but it strikes the right balance between cost and functionality. This is one of those one-off catch-up projects that once completed we will probably rarely ever need to use the hardware again (we ISO all unique disk out of the box).

Asbo is right about needing to have the good sense to title the disk correctly, but our quality controls should ensure no screw ups.

Thanks everyone for your input and help. It was nice to see that I wasn't missing any of the possible solutions.