There are several reasons to get rid of your discs. This includes software you’ve purchased, backup discs, games, and even operating systems. I had two reasons to get rid of my discs. One was that the rack of discs was another piece of clutter in my home office. The other more important reason is CD’s and DVD’s have a shelf life. I recently pulled a disc from the rack and attempted to use it. It had no scratches or scuffs but was completely unreadable.

To get go digital with your hard copy discs follow these simple steps:

1. Take an Inventory
   You can’t determine how to get rid of what you have unless you know what you have. I suggest creating 3 piles.
   • Discs you can easily replace for free. These will probably include backup copies and driver discs.
   • Unimportant discs you haven’t used in the past 6 months and probably won’t use within the next 6 months but need to keep. These most likely include things like Software Installation Discs.
   • Discs which you use occasionally and discs that are too important to lose. These will most likely include things like games which need to be in the drive to play and operating systems.
2. Throw out your replaceable discs
   They’re replaceable. You don’t need to keep them around. Things like drivers can easily be downloaded and are often well out of date anyway. Backup discs are an old method of backup and should be replaced with off site storage of some sort.
3. Box up the unimportant discs you haven’t used in 6 months
   There’s probably a reason you haven’t used them. Either they’re for software you keep installed and have no reason to reinstall them or they’re for software you don’t use often at all. In either case chances
   you won’t use it again for 6 months or more. Why keep it around cluttering your office.
4. Rip the important discs to ISO disc images
   You probably have plenty of storage. Why not use it to store your discs in a reliable way? It also makes accessing them easier as all you need to do is locate the disc on your hard drive and mount it.
5. Put purchased discs that you can’t part with back in their box
   You’ve already ripped them so you can access them any time you want. Put the discs back in their box and put the boxes on a shelf or in a box.
6. Throw out the remaining discs
   Clean up your office by getting rid of all the discs and the cd rack itself.

More and more our software is moving to downloadable or even online applications. Get rid of your hard copy media now and stay ahead of the curve!