You guys are giving me lots to think about.
EvilTech is pointing me toward relative high ground.

Napster:
That's an intriquing prospect--'cause for $200 bucks I can kind of experiment without taking too much of a hit if I decide to go whole hog within the year.

I can't quite match your $200 suggested list for those 2 items. Do you have bargain outlet in mind?

Jason,
I'm already ahead with my Max's. I've got a truckload of em and never had one go south. I think it's unlikely one will fail me before it's simpy too small to bother with.
I'm at the stage where I don't bother populating an IDE slot with anything less than 200Gig. So I have all my legacy 30's & 80's and 120's that I swap in and out of an external firewire hookup like floppies. Forget backing up to DVD--Old hardisks is the only way to go...