CHRISTIAN--- Thank you for your very informative post. I liked your format for answering my questions. I will have to learn to do that in my future postings. The only thing else I will need to learn is to how to set up the particular machine I buy so that the HDD stores my recordings in such a way that it is the simplest and most logical format for me to use, which I realize is very subjective. And I will also need to learn how to use r/w discs and what differences there are in the recording process as to how the disc is reclaimed for reuse. My open reel experiances are guiding me here. I like the idea that I can record to a r/w disc and reuse it if I wish to after I have made either a copy to anr disc, or made a copy to the r disc from the hard drive. And I also like the idea that with a large drive I can store content for a long time while also haveing a large capacity to fill be fore I need to reclaim all or part of the drive. In this way I can have both temporary discs(r/w) anf permanent discs(r), just as I do now with my magnetic tapes, some for reuse and a large collection for archiveing. Thank you for clearing up some of my confuseion.