Straying slightly from the question, I have become a big fan of the Western Digital Live Hub.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=570
There are models with, and without an internal 1 TB hard drive, and both accept an additional USB drive.
Or, it can take music directly from your home network (IE your primary computer).
When connected to the internet, it automatically updates its firmware.
It enables me to play music and video over my home media system, which is Denon based, instead of my computer.
But sticking strictly to the computer, I use iTunes so I can mess with my iPods.