Solid-state disks have several variants but in general are faster than magnetic disks and are nonvolatile. One type of solid-state disk stores data in a large DRAM array during normal operation but also contains a hidden magnetic hard disk and a battery for backup power. If external power is interrupted, this solid-state disk’s controller copies the data from RAM to the magnetic disk. When external power is restored, the controller copies the data back into RAM. Another form of solid-state disk is flash memory, which is popular in cameras and personal digital assistants ( PDAs), in robots, and increasingly for storage on general-purpose computers. Flash memory is slower than DRAM but needs no power to retain its contents. Another form of nonvolatile storage is NVRAM, which is DRAM with battery backup power. This memory can be as fast as DRAM and (as long as the battery lasts) is nonvolatile.