Players with the largest capacity (and largest price) use small hard drives to store music. Players like the Ipod can store gigabytes worth of music, which means you can store thousands of songs on your player. Though hard drives have moving parts, the players are very durable and require a great deal of abuse to cause playback problems.

In the middle of the range are solid state devices that use SD, Memory Stick or Flash Media cards. Some units even use thumb drives for storage. While these units have less capacity, the cards can usually be swapped out for another. This means you can carry more music on spare cards. While the initial cost of the players are less, the extra high-capacity cards can become costly. However, these units are still usually less than hard drive models.

At the low end of the scale are units that have a small amount of built in memory, but don't offer expansion capabilities. While these units are inexpensive, you are limited in how much music you can carry with you. However, if you only take short trips with your music, a few dozen songs may be enough for your needs.