Best way to store a large movie collection?

Not really sure where to dump this question, so here goes. I’m torn on how to actually store my movie collection—should I be moving everything to USB drives, an external hard drive, or just stick to buying DVDs? I’ve got a ton of them on disc right now, but it feels like every single laptop being sold these days lacks an optical drive. Can I even rip these DVDs onto a thumb drive, and if so, what's the move? Why did everyone just stop caring about physical discs? Honestly, I’m kind of old school; I love having a physical collection with the actual cover art, stills, and all that extra stuff. I'm just totally lost on what to do...

To put it simply: it's entirely up to you. If by "storing" you mean archiving a collection rather than just viewing and deleting files, a USB drive probably isn't your best bet—it'll fill up before you know it, and you'll eventually need that drive for something else. Burning DVDs feels like a relic of the past to me; it’s expensive and frankly a huge hassle. Your most logical, streamlined option is just using an external hard drive.

Regarding transferring data from a DVD, you can use programs like these. Of course, if the files are already organized in folders in another format, you can just use a simple drag-and-drop to move them to your hard drive. However, if you actually own a DVD drive—whether it's a burner or a standard player—I don't see much point in migrating the files at all; just keep the discs.