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I bought a bunch of blank CDs that came in packs of 1,000 discs wrapped in plastic, without cake-boxes. Now I need to find a good way to store them all.

Are (empty) cake-boxes available for purchase? Is there another good way store them?

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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
@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
@ldigas The stack is shrink wrapped without a spindle, one you break the wrapping all the CD's are free. This is intended for bulk processing for when you would just load the whole stack in to a automated machine once you open it. I believe the OP's main problem is what does he do when he needs to open the package but only use 2 or 3 disks. –  Scott Chamberlain Jul 1 '13 at 14:04
@Synetech Cake-box might be the industry standard term but I have never heard of it before now. I think Spindle is the more widely known and understood term. –  Scott Chamberlain Jul 1 '13 at 17:21

4 Answers 4

Yes, empty cake-boxes are indeed available, but are generally not cost-effective.

A cheaper solution is to buy a box of plastic cases or paper sleeves. Plastic cases are little more expensive, but a box of a couple of hundred paper sleeves can be had for a couple of dollars from dollar-stores, surplus stores, etc. and you can get a larger quantity for a better bargain online.

Paper CD/DVD sleeve Plastic CD/DVD case

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Old 5 1/4" floppy sleeves work really well for this too if you have a bunch laying around in your closet. That's what I use. –  Scott Chamberlain Jul 1 '13 at 18:12
True, true. Though I’m not sure about their scratch-avoidance—ness. Some of them were actually quite soft and would/should work great for CDs/DVDs, but some of them were made of a tougher material because floppy disks weren’t scratchable like discs are, so make sure to examine them first. Either way, I don’t see them being available in sufficient quantities to make it cost-effective to store thousands of CDs (unless you can find someone who has a crate of them and either lives in town or is willing to ship them for free—but that’s why I suggested local classifieds). –  Synetech Jul 1 '13 at 18:42

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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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

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

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