In a recent burst of organization, I finally completed creating virtual CD (/DVD) images of my entire PC-CD collection, stretching back to 1994. The photo to the left does not even include many programs stored only in paper sleeves.
I started using Virtual CD in 2000 when my young children were trashing game CDs with alarming - and expensive! - frequency. This program adapted over the years in an "arms race" with evolving anti-archive schemes. Fortunately the emergence of server-side authentication has reduced the incidence of annoying restrictions.
Consolidating these CDs on networked storage dramatically
improved manageability of these applications. I now restore a fresh PC
boot image and install relevant programs in a matter of minutes.
Installation runs much faster from hard-disk copies, and I no longer
need to hunt for any physical CDs.
The stack of jewel & snap cases stretched nearly 2 meters, so I recovered a huge amount of bookshelf space - and time - for only ~250 GB on disk, plus comparable space in my NAS backups. Great ROI !!
I was pleased to see Total Annihilation represented among the virtual CDs. Still the best RTS ever ...
:-)
Posted by: Steve Klinkner | December 13, 2007 at 06:33 PM