Finding room for all those old CDs from high school and since are real pains in the you know what, but no fear because there are plenty of CD storage options.

One of the best options is to store all your music on a portable hard drive, which will allow you easy access and save a ton of space over having all those jewel cases in the house.   My wife and I own around a thousand albums, but have now burned them all onto a drive and run it through iTunes on an extra computer we have.  With our iPod touch and WiFi network we can easily access any song from any CD in a matter of moments and listen throughout the house.  In case are wondering how large of a drive you need, figure around fifteen songs per album and four megabytes per song if you are saving them in MP3 format.  We bought a 120 GB drive for just fewer than seventy dollars; it holds our entire music collection of 17,000 plus songs and is only half full.  Who needs a big CD storage tower after all?

If you do feel like displaying your music collection you may benefit from one of the many models of CD storage cabinets there are on the internet.  By visiting different media storage companies that are easily found through Google you will find all kind of CD storage styles that also do a great job of displaying your collection for all to see.  One CD storage cabinet we saw held over a thousand discs and sold for less than five-hundred dollars.  It was made of solid oak and included glass insert doors that allowed anyone to browse the collection when they pleased.

One of the more creative CD storage ideas we have seen is what I call the “coffee table book” method.  Get large CD booklet at any Target or Wal-Mart that holds two-hundred discs or so and fill it up.  Place this on your coffee table and you will be amazed how many conversations it starts, and how much your guests will enjoy browsing through it.  If you don’t like the sort of industrial look these books have, try searching some of the online CD storage companies.  There are many different kinds of books that provide DVD CD storage, and some are even made to look like encyclopedias or other books on a shelf.

The next idea is somewhat like the cabinets, but rather using CD storage racks to cover an entire wall of a room in your.  This is obviously for people who would like to display their music collection and have easy access at the same time.  You can purchase racks that hold anywhere from ten to a hundred or more discs and they easily hang with just a few screws and a drill.  Depending on the size of your collection this can really create a unique look in any room you choose and can become part of your entire décor.

Finally, one of the best ideas we have seen for CD storage is also a kind of wall mount system, except in this idea you take the discs out of the jewel cases and hang them individually.  We have seen this done in several college dorm rooms, or dedicated music rooms in larger homes.  There are several online CD storage wall companies that sell CD holding “sheets” that you can easily attach to a wall.  You do want to do some online research though before attempting this on your own.  It can really change the way a room looks, and you should probably decide how it would look in your home before committing to go this route.

If your interior decorating style is one of contemporary designs and minimalistic effects, finding quality metal CD storage that matches may not be as easy as one would think.  Many times you visit some of the large box stores that carry home media storage you will find one or two different design models, but not the wide selection most people need when trying to perfectly match in the interior of their home.  This is especially true if you want your CD storage rack or shelf to be part of your overall entertainment display. 

Because of these desires and goal, mixed with the overall lack of selection at most retail locations, you will probably need to move your search online and look at some of the metal CD storage options found from companies that specialize in media storage.

The first thing you should consider before looking at specific models is just how many discs you are looking to hold.  Do you want to keep your entire collection in the open for display, or just a small sample of current favorites?  Also, do you want your CD storage racks to have doors of any kind, and should they include a locking mechanism for safety?  Many college students or other people who have roommates feel this is a very important feature of any kind of CD storage.

Once you have decided how many compact discs you need to hold, and whether you need to secure them, it is time to talk about money.  These days a specialized CD storage tower or CD storage cabinet can run from under fifty-dollars to over a thousand.  The folks at Boltz Furniture sell online and have a metal CD rack that holds 2400 discs and costs around nine-hundred dollars.

While many people don’t think about this before purchasing CD rack storage or any other kind of media storage unit, installation is vitally important to the longevity of the piece of furniture.  Here at CD Storage World we have found that while a CD DVD storage unit itself is well built, the attaching bolts and screws needed for installation can be a bit cheap.  In some units we have seen drastic improvements in strength just by replacing the flimsy bolts and screws with tougher models the can be purchased at a local hardware store for under five-bucks.

Finally, when it comes to metal CD storage or any kind for that matter, you should strongly consider and plan for growth in your collection.  There are some CD storage cabinets or racks that are part of an overall modular system that can be expanded with almost no limits.  Whether you purchase online or through a special storage furniture store, make sure to ask what kind of options there are for expanding the system.  Nothing looks worse than two or three different CD storage towers that are mismatched because they were bought from different places and manufacturers.  At that point you almost have to start over again with a new search.

For so many people who own hundreds of music and spoken word CD’s, finding CD storage options that are affordable, attractive and high enough quality to last more than a year or so can be a real challenge.  One of the most common styles of storage for music and other smaller items are CD storage racks which can be found in most stores that sell items for the home.  As you will find there are several different design options available from classic looking wood units to more contemporary designs that often include metal, glass and types of plastic. 

One of the more popular online dealers of CD storage racks is Boltz Furniture, which has literally hundreds of different styles of media storage in all sizes and price ranges.  The folks over at Boltz are also very proud of their products being made in America with high quality standards.  While researching for this article we found some great options that held up to 2400 CD’s for fewer than nine-hundred dollars.  They also provide solutions for CD storage drawers, CD storage cabinets and combination DVD CD storage.

One of the more interesting CD storage racks we found was at the WebMall 2000 site and held compact discs in little drawers that reminded us of the old Dewey decimal card drawers at the library.  Technically this piece would be closer to a CD storage cabinet than a rack, but it is vertical in design and holds 456 CD’s or 192 DVD’s.  This is also a perfect time to mention that many of the best CD racks will also be easily convertible to use to store other entrainment media like DVD’s, cassettes, VHS tapes and old vinyl records.

Now if you don’t want to spend close to a thousand dollars to keep your CD collection organized, but still want to have easy access to it, there are some more affordable CD storage options for you at your local IKEA.  When shopping at the Seattle location we saw some great, low-cost, CD racks that held around five-hundred discs, but cost closer to a hundred.  With most IKEA items you will want to double-check the true quality, but for the money they are hard to beat.

But before you go out to a retail location we recommend shopping online and seeing various different models and price quotes.  We mention Boltz Furniture earlier, and they are joined by Flipworks which creates some interesting designs that can be attached to your current furniture.  Another website we came across was created by a company called Meyer Mat, and the products there are totally industrial strength stuff.

Finally, when you go about selecting a CD storage rack for your home or apartment, there are some basic hints to keep in mind to insure you get the best quality unit.  First, if you are able to actually see and touch the rack you want, take a look at the joints and places where the furniture pieces were put together.  They should be very solid and not “wiggle” or be loose at all.  Also keep in mind how easy certain pieces like drawers move.  While they may slide very easily when empty, how much more difficult will they be to open when full of music?  Many of the highest quality units include ball bearing rollers in places to make opening a full CD storage drawer very easy and smooth.