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Digital Video Disc Removable Media: Another optical disk format is the DVD type, which is available as: DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R (only records once), DVD-RW, DVD+RW (allows partial rewrites), and DVD-RAM (space efficient when recording and highest capacity for rewrites as well as for storage when using both sides). DVD storage capacities range from 1.46 GB-17.08 GB. Data transfer rates range from 1.35 MB/s for 1x to 32.4 MB/s for 24x. Portable media drive players are available for both DVD and CD media. Flash Drive Removable Media: These use flash memory, which allows data to be stored and written over and maintained without power. 64 MB-128 MB are typical sizes for drives. Highly portable, (and also called thumb drives) they are compact and offer both USB and FireWire connectivity. Known as a live USB drive, these can be used to boot from. Transfer rates are stated as either MB/s or the same as CD-ROMs (e.g., 100x). Erase/program capabilities slow down considerably as the chip wears out. Memory Card Removable Media: There are quite a variety of these and some of the devices they are used in include: digital cameras and voice recorders, printers, laptops, handheld devices, music players, and game consoles. Some use flash memory and some do not. They offer ready ability to record, small size, non-volatile storage, and, in some cases, wireless capability. External Hard Drive Removable Media: These are an excellent way to back up critical data. They offer USB, FireWire, and eSata connectivity and range in capacity from the megabytes to terabytes. It is possible to easily create an image of the contents of an internal hard drive and use this to restore data. Less Popular Removable Media: Becoming less available are the old 1.44 MB floppy drives. They and zip drives, which can hold 250 MB-750 MB are still around though, and the zip media format can still provide useful convenient storage, particularly with REV drives, which offer backup disk capability of 35 GB-240 GB.