All the discs I test always create me with the problems of identifying each disc and being able to lay my hands on the correct disc quickly, so when RiDisc kindly supplied me with their new Disc Library storage system it was the answer to my prayers.

Product features:

• Each unit stores, protects and retrieves up to 150 of your most used 12 cm discs, including data CDs, DVDs, music and game discs.
  
• The RiSafe DC-300's CD Library's fully motorized disc insert and eject helps protect your valuable discs.
  
• The RiSafe DC-300's CD Library is simple to set up, linking to your computer via a single USB cable for data connectivity - supplied.
  
• Stack units up to five high to create a tower that holds up to 750 discs without any extra cabling or rebooting your computer.
  
• Daisy chain machines using USB to control over 120 machines (that's over 19,000 discs) from a single computer.
  
• Use the bundled content management software to capture disc content.
  
• Search the RiSafe DC-300's database of stored discs by title, keyword, directory or file name to find and eject any disc within seconds.
  
• The RiSafe DC-300's software is so simple to use you will be storing, managing and protecting discs in no time.
  
• You can use the RiSafe DC300 as a standalone machine if you don't have access to a computer.
  
• The RiSafe DC300 CD Library has a key pad for easy access to your stored disc's.
  
• Database software works on both Apple Macs and PC's
  
• Scan / import disc covers.
  
• Barcode function for those of you who need that facility.
  
• The database software self expands as you plug in more units via USB.

You can download a full spec sheet here (pdf format - 200k).

The unit has a stylish solid structure that will enhance any PC or home movie setup. It will take up to 150 120mm discs either CD or DVD and comprises of a front loading carousel with a lockable sliding door for security. There is a keypad on the front for easy access to any of the discs inside. Its operation is not unlike a mechanical juke box with the carousel spinning to the selected numbered disc and ejecting it.

The units are available in two colours, the traditional PC cream and dark grey. they can be stacked on top of each other up to a recommended a maximum of 5 units per tower coinciding with the maximum of 5 in the USB daisy chain, see diagram.

Each unit contains its own internal USB hub and you can (in theory, at least) connect 127 DC-300s to one computer, for a total of 19050 discs to any one PC You're certainly not going to be able to do that by daisy-chaining all of them from a single port, but a computer with a couple of extra USB hubs and a couple of extra USB controller cards as well should have no trouble running at least a few dozen DC-300s.

The units are physically stackable, but all they have on the bottom are moulded plastic feet with no locating fixings on the top, so you wouldn't want to make too tall a totem pole without using a more solid attachment method, The web states a maximum of 5 units stacked on top of each other but in the manual it suggests a maximum of 3 which without any securing between them is probably the maximum for stability, I found Velcro sticky pads an ideal way of securing them on top of each other and a tower of 5 secured this way is quite stable providing the total weight of 750 discs is taken into consideration.

Each unit comes with its own 9v DC power supply enabling it to be operated independent of the PC via its own keypad just by selection the location number from 1 to 150.

When connected to the PC via the USB the DC-300 is true plug & play with the generic Windows drivers recognising them as a "USB Human Interface Device" and once installed the Disc management software can easily be used to catalogue the entire disc collection for easy retrieval. Each disc is given a unique location ID of Disc library number & carousel location, a double click on this location starts the carousel in he appropriate unit rotating, and in less than 5 seconds the front flap drops down and the disc ejected.

The core of the CD Library system is the software. Unless you reverse-engineer the weird communication protocol being used, you won't be able to hook the CD Libraries into any database but the one they come with.

You've got your multiple categories, your one-click file indexing (you have to put the disc to be indexed in your PC CD/DVD-ROM drive, of course), your comment fields and vaguely useable picture index thing, and your optional password protection. If it's on a 120mm disc, you should be able to index it. And keep your index safe from prying eyes, if that matters to you.

Usability-wise, the CD Library 3.5 software remains something of a blast from the past. It gets the job done and its interface isn't hideously clunky, but it's got no online help, its error messages are cryptic, it doesn't quite meet Windows interface standards (closing windows instead of clicking OK, nasty old Win3.1 file requesters...) and it's got one of those manuals that seems to have been written by the programmers, who documented features more or less in the order in which they implemented them, one particular gripe of mine is that you cannot update the database by saving within the program you had to exit for the updated database to be saved.

Once you get the hang of the way the CD Library software works - create an entry with a library ID (connect multiple libraries and each one has its own ID number), slot number, category and title, then populate the rest of the fields manually or automatically - it goes pretty quickly. There's a simple spreadsheet-looking data adding interface for when you want to add multiple entries in one session; you still have to manually enter the unit and slot IDs, and you then have to type in the category rather than pick it from a drop-down list, but it works well enough.

There are also little frills, like the ability to select multiple discs for ejection. If you ask for more than one disc, the appropriate Library will go to the first one, pop it out, wait an advertised "3 to 5 seconds" - which gives you enough time to grab the disc - then head on to the next one. If you want to index audio CDs, the software features a "Get CDDB" button, which actually connects to freedb.org to get track listings. You can attach CD artwork scans to listings as well, if you like but it only accepts BMP images to create its own thumbnails a choice of jpg, gif & png would be an asset.

You can also back up and transfer databases between machines, by the time-honoured copy-all-the-data-files-by-hand method, The software works under all properly USB-aware Windows versions - Win98SE, Win2000, WinXP, WinME - and under unspecified Mac OS versions as well. I haven't played with the Mac OS software, but the manual shows Mac OS X screenshots; I don't know whether previous USB-capable Mac OS versions will work.

Overall
If you just need a lot of storage in one place, a bunch of 120mm optical discs is probably not the best option. The plummeting price of commodity hard disk storage has turned several previously popular storage options, including CD/DVD jukeboxes, into niche products. 150 700Mb CDs is 105,000 megabytes, which is a lot of data if you print it all out and then have to carry it somewhere, but which isn't at all impressive by the standards of current hard drives. 150 4700Mb DVD-ROMs is a rather more imposing 705,000Mb, which no single drive can yet touch - but a RAID 5 array of six 200Gb drives will give you around 800,000Mb with spectacularly superior seek speed.
If you do have a bunch of 120mm discs that need indexing, though - DVDs, VCDs, PC and console game CDs, backups, whatever - then the CD Library II is a good solution.

Conclusion
These stylish Disc Libraries look the part and are Ideal for storage and easy access to my discs especially DVD movies with fast access (up to 5 seconds) and the ability to be used with or without PC interface makes them a definite must have for my collection

The DC-300 is also sold under the DATASAFE & DataWrite brand names