I've decided to stick to SD format (up to 4Gb size, but I'm primarily using 2GB micro SD cards in order to format them in FAT16) because it's backward compatible with SDHC, and because some older devices may not be able to deal with SDHC cards at all.

Also consider the impact of loosing the 16GB of data on SDHC card versus just 2Gb on SD

Or you mean the SD card form-factor versus micro SD?

Yes, I meant the larger form factor. Personally, I mostly use SDHC, but I understand your point that sticking to SD provides additional interoperability.

The nice thing is the readers that can do SDHC can do both.

As for losing data. It's easier to have two 16GB SDHC cards (redundancy) than eight 4GB SD cards. ;-)

-john

Thanks for the link to the Tuff 'n Tiny. I hate carrying things on my keyring but even I could probably squeeze one (or two) of those into the mix.

The Tuff 'n Tiny looks interesting. But I would be concerned about static discharge across the exposed contacts when carried in a pocket.

I have some ancient Lexar USB drives, a 4 year-old PNY Attache drive, and several unknown drives received from vendors that also work flawlessly. In fact, now that I think about it, the only problem I've had with USB drives is losing them, or the drive not fitting into a recessed USB jack.

My current favorite is the Kingston DataTraveler Locker with included encryption. I've plugged these into all kinds of computers with different versions of Windows, old USB 1.0 through the new USB 3 draft, and the drives and encryption software works flawlessly.

Agreed, its a concern for me too, and while online reviews don't establish much, the static discharge risk or other failure owing to exposed contacts hasn't been reported by anyone anywhere I know of - I've only had this for about a month, so more use is required. My other thumb drive is a retractable version, so if the Tuff n Tiny fails I have the same data on the retractable version, and I start again by duplicating it to another drive. (and since I'm far more likely to lose a ring of keys than anything else, it goes without saying that data on keyring thumb drives should always be redundant with some other location).

One nice thing, both thumb drives formatted with the new Win7 supported bitlocker usb drive encryption really easily, such that the proprietary data I carry on them remains encrypted unless I connect it to one of my PCs. I use that as I travel, preferring to keep business data encrypted on my thumb drive rather than on a laptop or phone. One less password to remember...

I keep my contact info, and offer a reward, in a "readmefirst.txt" file at the root level of every card for my digital cameras. The first image on each card is a photo directing the viewer to that info. It occurs to me now, that I could ditch the thumbdrive, as I almost always have a camera and a cardreader with me.

This is a timely topic for me because one of my new year goals is to get my documents (hard copies and electronic versions) in order.

Among other formats, I plan to use thumb drives for storing/carrying certain information.

Anyone have any experience with Iron Key?

https://www.ironkey.com/

I'd suggest you use a software encryption. Hardware is too... um, permanent. And all things security will eventually need an upgrade:

http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/01/05/1734242/Encryption-Cracked-On-NIST-Certified-Flash-Drives

You could use something like Windows Bitlocker as noted by Lono, or something like Truecrypt.

-john

IronKey is over priced IMHO.
ESP. considering once you get larger they charge way too much!