[quote=Mike Anderson]Notice that all the anti-computer sentiment tends to come from people who have never seriously tried it.quote]

What you are saying is not necessarily true. I am a professional in the computer field. MS in Computer Science and MCSE among other things. My specific objection to archiving a music collection on HDD revolves around the inherent failure rate of said hard drives. I suppose it's all right as long as you keep a hard copy (original CD) of all your music. Actually you should. The HDD is going to fail. It will fail with no warning and you will loose every thing on it.
That said, I realize just how seductive such products as the Squeezebox and others are. Just remember, you should always keep the original source material. You will need it.