Hi Fred and Paul,
First, Paul if I wouldn't have looked at the Solton discussion group site tonight I would have not remembered I posted this about the D16. Thanks for the reminder!
In my opinion and my Alesis Reps opinion who listened very carefully, the D16 because of not having any compression, sounds better. Also, having so many effects and very good EQ is a real plus. The only negative I can see so far, is the fact that it looks inexpensive because of it's size and plastic light weight case. But, it's packed with great pro features and a great touchscreen interface.
Paul, I asked the same question to Korg, and with their little knowledge of this product at this point I think it is possible to have a total of 1000 gigabite of total memory if a hard drive could have that much memory. I asked if there was a limit to the size of a partition, and the answer was I don't think so from Korg. But I will have to find out more. But even if you were limited to 2 gigs, it's still an amazing product. The drum machine idea is way cool, as well as having a built in mic. I recorded on it today for the first time, and the sound was brilliant.
George Kaye