Ok, so I upgraded to 120 GB, but emplode only reports 111 in the status line. [...] Is this "normal"?

Sadly, yes. You were stitched up by your supplier: they sold you 120,000,000,000 bytes of storage, not 120GB. Eventually, a bit like those sold-as-17in monitors with only 15.7in of visible area, the courts or the Advertising Standards people will decide that this is fraudulent, deceptive, and unacceptable. Until then, just remember to take about 7.5% off any gigabyte figure quoted to you by drive manufacturers.

Edit: Gosh, I'm in a ranty mood this morning, aren't I? I'd better also add that not all 120,000,000,000 bytes are available for music storage, as some is used for the Empeg software, swap space, etc. -- about 80MB per drive

Peter