> Second, the price of spinning disks is such that it makes no > sense to buy anything smaller than 4TB, which will fit all this, > and 6-8 TB are often a reasonable idea even for single users.
You seem to assume a 3½" form factor which either requires a "large" desktop or an external enclosure. Personally I consider this form factor dead every since I bought my first 2TB 2½" disk. [ For reference, the last 3½" disk I bought was a 1TB WD Green, which I fitted into my ASUS WL-700gE. ] Stefan