Tom, First I will start by stating that I work for Seagate - thats the forum rules IIRC - so I do have a bias......Before you consider a LaCie external drive I would look at the alternatives offered by the major drive manufacturers (not just Seagate). LaCie dont design or make drives. Thus I recommend you look at something external from a drive manufacturer (usual suspects...Seagate, Maxtor etc) These guys know all there is to know about drives - very important when you are trying to produce a quality external drive. Any questions on capacity, models etc, just PM me.

Have you considered something from the Imerge or Revox or ANOther audio server folks? Could be another avenue to consider.

Maybe even Digital Fidelity  (www.digitalfidelity.com) or something of this ilk (Ive seen some pretty funky control options - like PDA driven GUI browse CD art+titles etc all linked to gracenote database (iirc a few of the audio server guys do this too).

Sounds like a cool project.