The program supports CD-R and CD-RW drives, Iomega (Zip, Jaz, etc.) drives, and several portable MP3 players.

CNN: RealJukebox: MP3 for dummies

These often include features the lightweights lack, especially CD-ROM, DVD or CD-RW drives.

WSJ: Laptops Bring Along Bewildering Options

But random erase is becoming more common, and is, for example, available in the current generation of Hewlett-Packard CD-RW drives.

CNN: Verbatim to ship first 4X CD-RW drive

Some existing CD-RW drives require that the whole CD-RW disc be erased before new data can be written to it.

CNN: Verbatim to ship first 4X CD-RW drive

Next week at Comdex, Verbatim will roll out the 4420, which the company claims is the first CD-RW drive that offers 4X write on both CD-R and CD-RW media. (Current drives are limited to 2X write speeds for CD-RW.) The drive reads CD-ROMs, CD-R, and CD-RW media at 20X.

CNN: Verbatim to ship first 4X CD-RW drive

Like CD-RW on steroids, DVD-RAM drives can record and rewrite up to 5.2GB on one double-sided disc--more than eight times the capacity of a CD.

CNN: IDG.net - Recordable and rewritable CD drives: Permanent, portable storage

If you've heard the buzz about these next-generation recordable drives, you're probably wondering if you should skip CD-RW altogether.

CNN: IDG.net - Recordable and rewritable CD drives: Permanent, portable storage