Get rid of them - Take them to Goodwill or offer them on Freecycle or craigslist. Give them one more chance to be useful before they end up sitting for generations in a garbage heap.

Do you have them backed up somewhere?

Legally, you need to keep the CDs, even if you have ripped the music to your computer. But you don't need to keep them nearby. So you can take all the CDs out of their cases and put them in a box and stash it somewhere out of the way.

For the cases, you can donate them somewhere or recycle them.

My what if's are loud right now, what if my computer crashes and lose all the music loaded on there? That box of cd's represents a large cash outlay. What if what if what if I need one of those cd's one day.

I'm thinking of getting binders to hold my CDs. That way they can just hang out on a bookshelf. Can't tell what's what when they are in the CD racks I currently have anyway. The plastic cases.... Don't know what I'll do with them.

Snoogie, you can buy a back up for your PC. That way, you don't have to worry about losing what you've stored on your PC. Thrift stores here will take the cases if they are not damaged.

We have a local record store that has a huge used CD collection.

DH will not get rid of any of our CD's. We want to redo the home office and will probably use the IKEA bookcases that include CD's and DVD's.

I concur on the external hard drive backup (or else do an online service). But the external hard drives are only about $75.

I just recently purchased a couple of CD storage binders even though we have our disks burned to the computer (like others said, have to keep the copy). Haven't had a chance to put the CDs in them yet though. The ones we bought are rather attractive on a bookshelf, and we will be able to store all 150 CDs that we have in about 6" of bookshelf. I liked the ones we found because you can put both the disk and jewel case booklet in one slot together.

I've been debating about whether to donate the empty jewel cases to a thrift store, or just toss them in the trash- either way the bulk will be out of the house. I don't think the jewel cases are recyclable, I'd do that if so.

If you have some that you know you will never be interested in listening to again, I would delete them from your computer, and donate the disk. No sense in storing something you have zero interest in.

Keep in mind that if you ever wish to swell/swap these in the future, you're going to need to hold on to the jewel cases, or at least to the inserts. And that includes the back and spine cover pieces. Otherwise, they really have no value.

We don't have a huge CD collection. but we got three of the tall Ikea CD shelves that are about 8" wide. We put them up on a short wall in the office, perpendicular to the closet and behind the door to the room when open. You'd never even know they were there.