The average size of a DVD backed up using handbrake is 1.4Gb.

The second is hard disk space.  If you are going to be backing up TV series then you will need quite a bit of space.  What I am going to be using is a Brando style Dock and purchasing some 1TB hard drives from Sphinx computers.  1 hard disk will hold all my films easily and I will purchase additional ones for TV series as I buy the DVD Sets.

For example, NCIS Season 1 took 14.6 GB and there are 7 seasons so far.  24 has 24 episodes per season and 8 seasons so far, Season 7 took 21GB.  I can fit all of it on 1 hard drive at the moment but will fill it very quickly so I think splitting them now will be easier and quicker.

I was thinking of using SDHC cards but at £50 for 32GB it would cost me a fair amount of money to do it.  Using the bare Sata Hard drives and the Brando dock means I can expand the system as much as I want adding an extra 1TB for around £60 a time.

I love my books, music and films.  However storing them like you do in a house is not practical.  Keeping shelves of DVD’s and books just doesn’t work in a motorhome.

Thanks to the digital age this is not an issue any more.  I have imported my entire CD collection into iTunes,  I have started buying ebooks for my Sony PRS-505 rather than the dead tree variety.  Unfortunately DVD’s do not come quite so easily into the digital age.  Fortunately after some trial and error and some wasted money I have found a solution.

I use AnyDVD and Handbrake to rip the DVD’s to my hard disk and then store the DVD’s themselves in a cupboard along with my books and CD’s.  This has a couple of advantages.

• No shelving needed
• No more scratched or lost DVD’s
• Very quick to browse and find any DVD I want.

Using Amazon.co.uk and the windows 7 Snipping Tool I can also have the DVD cover imported into iTunes so that they also look good as well.

I now have a rule that when I buy a new DVD I am not allowed to watch it until it is Ripped.  I am also doing around 5 DVD’s a day out of my collection so that in a couple of weeks I will have all my DVD’s stored and imported into iTunes properly.

I find I am now watching the DVD’s more than once which I never did before.

I use the large desktop when at home/office, The large laptop goes with me when I am going anywhere for more than a day. The little laptop goes with me whenever I leave the house.

Keeping the relevent data synched across these is a bit of a pain. I generally use a USB stick and save directly to them when using the laptops and then transfer this to the main system later.

I quite like the size of the SD cards and with 32GB ones available now they are a practical replacement for SD cards and external USB hard drives. The Camera I am looking at uses SD cards unlike my current one which uses Compact Flash. I am thinking along the lines of getting

• 16GB SD Card for my music collection (iTunes) My library currently stands at 8GB
• 32GB SD Card for My Pictures, this should be enough to see me a couple of years.
• 32GB SD Card for My Development work
• 32GB SD Card for my other documents and notes (spreadsheets letters etc)
• 4GB SD Card for my ebook, This can stay in my Sony eBook unless I want to transfer a book onto it.

With me moving into the Truck I have to reduce space usage down dramatically. I have imported all my CD’s into iTunes. Books I buy in future will all be in eBook format (no DRM I hope). This just leaves my DVD Collection. I am in two minds here. I can either have a large NAS storage box and put them on all there or I can put them onto SD Cards. As I have 200 odd DVD’s the SD card method will prove expensive. The 8GB SD cards are cheapest per GB and they would fit on either 2 or 3 DVD’s on each one at £6.00 a piece this would be a very expensive method. Even more so when some of those DVD’s are box sets such as 24. Dabs has this 1TB NAS box with WiFi built in which I am considering. I will also get one of these for when the computer I am on doesn’t have an SDHC Port.

The plan is to not take any books, CD’s or DVD’s into my Truck leaving me a lot more space for real essentials and comfort. I will put these items into storage but still want access to them from my Truck. The music side was easy to resolve, The books were a little harder but the DVD’s are proving to be the biggest struggle due to the sheer size of the data.