They come in both upright and canister models. They have motor protection so the suction path bypasses the motor, the clinkers go right through the hose into the bag and don't jam the motor. The first one I bought was 1996, it is an upright. I had managed to suck up enough invisible fishing line weights to ruin 3 other vac motors in just a few years ( I met my fisherman hubby in 1989). With the motor protection, it still runs well today in 2014 except for a testy on\off switch, and has never burned out. Not only have I accidently run over stray fishing line weights, but that same vacuum from 1996 also ended up serving as a shop vac during our 1998-1999 large home addition (including sawdust, nails, screws, old insulation and small wood fragments, you name it, if it didn't clog the hose it made it to the vac bag). We put in hardwood floors in 2010, I bought a canister type Panasonic MC vacuum with motor protection, it has a switch to turn the rotor off for hard surfaces. It has performed just as well as its upright predecessor. I ended up with that model after #1 knowing I still need the motor protection, and #2 in the reviews one woman complained that it tried to suck in her curtains that draped on the floor if she got the vac too close (in my mind that meant it would grab more pet hair . It was a no brainer. It works great for him but became difficult for me to maneuver so we ended up buying a new upright in 2014. Dear husband still prefers the canister vac since the rotor will disable with the click of his foot. We retired the 1996 vac last week. I freecycled it as I now have another new MC upright. The new one performs just as well, still uses the same size bags as the 1996 model (which are very affordable and I had them on hand as well). This time we bought the self retracting cord on the vacuum. For those that this pertains to, it turns out the self retracting cord mechanism weighs A LOT so it is more difficult to push around than the models where you manually wrap the cord. I should add, I found the tools (extra tubes, brush attach and crevice attachment) are easier and faster to access then hook up on the uprights.
