Data Hoarder

I have and I regret it immensely

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.

I’ve been getting rid of my physical media too. I still have my UHD movies but I don’t even watch them…

Still got some but I only have a couple dozen.

I quit buying physical media many years ago.

Just not any point, It's never more convenient to carry around a physical book to read when I already have a tablet that has hundreds.

I'm never going to want to have to physically find and insert a dvd or bluray just to sit through previews and warnings that I'm only subject to because I dared pay $20 for a physical disc.

Plus they're impractical for the same reasons as physical books.

I can watch pretty much any movie on my phone now from practically anywhere.

The only thing I think you might regret and realistically this is only a concern for older releases as this is pretty much completely not a thing anymore is the disc bonus features. Most modern stuff just flat doesn't have anything extra but used to you could get director's commentary and deleted scenes and stuff on the disc, things that online releases don't often include.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Me i still buy VHS/DVD/Bluray. Some movies on vhs i have never got dvd or bluray releases. Others like the first Mortal Kombat, has different french dub (different voice actors and dialogue) and different background music on both dvd and bluray compared to vhs. The movie The Mask, on vhs as i recall has some scenes which are a few seconds longer and one small scene at the start absent from the dvd and bluray releases. Bluray doesn't have the french dub. So for some movies i have both vhs/dvd or vhs/bluray depending on the dub (if french dub is absent or altered).

For games i thrift a lot so i still massively purchase cd-roms & dvd-roms for pc. Since 2017 i bought like two hundred pc games. I automatically archive the discs and then proceed to use them to play.

I of course buy physical for consoles too and my video game shop of choice has 10 games for 30$CAD; systems included are PS2/PS3/PS4/XBOX/XBOX360/XBOX ONE. More common games and those which they have too many copies are part of the bargain. I got the dead space trilogy and crysis trilogy for xbox 360 that way. I buy games for all consoles except gb/gbc since buying high quality carts and flashing them is cheaper than the originals and you get FRAM instead of SRAM for your saves which makes them last up to 40 years. I don't buy nes/snes/genesis games anymore but once i acquire soldering skills i will buy again and change the SRAM chips for FRAM to have durable saves.

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.

Havent had optical media since 2012, spare a few CD's I bought to support artists I like, which I can't listen too because no optical drive.

Do you have a system of backups for your digital library? For example at minimum do you have a physical backup of the data on drives not connected to your main computer AND an offsite backup (cloud storage or storing backed up physical media offsite)?

If not then you’re risking losing your entire library to one power spike caused by a nearby lightning strike or any other number of random events such as malfunctioning drives… etc.