@maddy I've a few CDs and DVDs, and currently I simply use dd if=/dev/sr0 of=/data/some-path/disk.img, or dd_rescue for a disc that has bad sectors. Would you say that that's appropriate or should I be doing more / doing it differently?

@vaporeon_ It's a complicated answer, and it largely depends on your goals.
While that method will likely work for your needs in a lot of cases, I'd consider it incomplete, at least in terms of preservation. There's software that will pick up metadata from the disc, read subcode data from CDs, and much much more that a simple DD won't do.

Now, if they're game discs and you're comfortable cracking it or using nocd patches or whatever, yeah, you're probably just fine keeping on as-is.

Audio CDs and CDs with audio tracks are a fucking mess though, and I'd always recommend using something like Exact Audio Copy or another piece of software that uses AccurateRip to verify that your dump matches everyone else's (if it has been dumped before).

I guess a good question would be, generally, what kind of discs are you dumping (or what kind of content is on them), and what are your goals with them?

@vaporeon_ I'd easily recommend Redumper (https://github.com/superg/redumper) as it's one of few softwares I've found that's open source, multiplatform, generally focused on preservation, and still actively maintained.

Though as I alluded to before, CDs are a fuck, and it's sometimes hard to get a proper rip without specific hardware because not every drive will properly dump the lead-in, lead-out, or there's junky error-correction that may need to be defeated (especially if there's disc-level DRM involved). The supported drive section of the readme ( https://github.com/superg/redumper?tab=readme-ov-file#supported-drives ) and below goes over this in some detail. I'd recommend trying the drive you have with the instructions given to see if it's adequate. Otherwise, they do have a supported drive list in a link within the mentioned section!

Otherwise, DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray* are pretty trivial and should work with Redumper regardless of what hardware you have.

Blu-rays are an exception if a disc requests BEE (Bus Encryption Enable) and your drive supports bus-encryption - then the disc is double encrypted with a drive-specific key and the disc's volume unique key. Not every disc requests this, but if you're for some reason doing an untouched dump of a retail blu-ray in this specific scenario, it's essentially useless unless you can get that drive-specific key. I personally just leave that mess to MakeMKV for the most part.