When buying a music player, you need to choose between two types: flash disk ot hard drive. If you have a lot of songs and audio files, the choice becomes clear--get a hard drive player. Now, if you think this is the end of your decision-making, better think again. There are a lot of hard drive players to choose from, and in order to choose the right one, you must know what you're looking for. Don't worry about this, though. By the time you finish reading this article, you will know the different kinds of hard drive audio players, and thus you will be able to pick the right kind for you.

The first thing you need to identify is the kind of files you're planning to put in your hard drive player. Are you going to put in your whole music collection into one portable device, or do you just want to have something to carry a few audio books to keep you entertained while you're on the go? Or do you just want something that looks great as an accessory? Even if your main purpose is to find something aesthetically appealing, remember that the performance is still what matters.

If you're planning to use a music player for audio books alone, you can settle for one that has a few gigs of memory. It's cheap and works well with the purpose you have in mind. However, if you're planning to transfer your entire music collection to an audio player, you're looking at a disk space that can reach as high as 60GB, depending on the size of your music library.

This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but more or less it's accurate: 1GB can usually store 500 songs.  If you think you have around 30,000 songs in your collection, purchasing an audio player with 60GB is worth it. However, if you feel that you can't possibly fill up 60GB of space, you can go for players that have a smaller yet still ample memory size. A player with 4GB of space can hold 2,000 songs, and that is already a pretty huge number.

Lastly, consider what else you want to get for your money. Many audio players offer extra features, like a photo viewer, video recorder, and FM radio. Some offer built-in storage for non-music files. Some even allow users to customize the look with accessories that can be bought separately. Though your main purpose for buying an audio player is to have something portable play your music, it doesn't hurt if you get one that has an extra feature. You never know, you just might find it handy in the future.