Slim Devices SB3 external hard drive

For latest pricing specials on hard drives see:
http://www.salescircular.com
Select your state. Click on hard drives. For reliability info on individual models check user reviews on Newegg, buy.com, CNET. Even from the same manufacturer, some drive models seem to be much more reliable than others. Good idea to maintain twin copies of the music collection on separate drives. Ideally drives should be from different manufacturers and they won't fail at the same time. . . . believe it or not, twin failures have happened as well. Optionally. . . makes ya bets'n takes ya chances !

For creating a music server around extremely rugged milspec external hard drives capable of surviving 1200G of accelleration see:
http://www.olixir.com
Somewhat pricier than run of the mill consumer grade drives, their 500GB solutions cost approx $550 after rebate. The 750GB drive is approx $750. . . still a bargain for audiophilically hardened pockets.
Olixir has an even more hardened line of drives, but those go only up to 160GB.

Not having done ripping yet I am wondering how many songs you can get from best slightly compressed (I guess Apple lossless) and fully oncompressed say on a 500 Gig drive.
Thanks
Chazz

I have 7211 FLAC compressed songs on my 300GB drive and it is about 66% full. Figure something around 18,000 songs for a 500GB drive if you use FLAC and the assortment is about the same (jazz, rock, classical - small and symphonic). Not sure how Apple Lossless and FLAC compare.