You are not alone in questioning the value of an on-board CDR. Road Warriors don't like the bulk and weight. But I think the Genesis makes sense as a compact all-in-one studio. The on-board disk can be used for harddisk recording and playback of samples and MIDI files and the CDR is used to get information efficiently into and out of the harddisk. I think the Genesis makes sense for some, but for me, I would go with Flash memory (internal and removable) all the way. (and forego harddisk recording)