I have ripped about 1500 CD's using uncompressed FLAC (using dbpoweramp) which does the artwork that wav files do not. They all fit comfortably on my 2TB portable hard drive (formatted FAT32) which I put in one of the USB slots. The advantage of uncompressed FLAC or wav files is the sound quality, much better than 256K or other compressed formats. With portable HD's so cheap - mine was $115 on sale at Costco last week for a 2TB version, there is no need to compress files. Also if you have or will ever get a good home stereo system with a good DAC, you will have the source to play the original CD's already done - no need to rerip.