Choice of USB stick

I had a FlashVoyagerGT 4GB model. First one completely hosed on me...I killed the drive controller in it and had to RMA it. It's a fast little drive, I was always impressed with the performance, but then it started flaking again. I used it waaay to much...I run FFP, TBP, Pidgin, Task Coach, etc all at the same time so it was easy to kill it.

I just moved up to a WD Passport 160GB 2.5" HDD. I've been VERY Happy with it. Add in TrueCrypt and you are golden

Robin,

The Voyager GT 16Gb uses a different flash chip than the smaller models (4GB, 8GB) which is slower. This is very common for most USB Manufacturers. The larger the drive, the slower. As far as performance (in a 16 GB drive), your VoyagerGT should be at the top of the list. The true performers are pretty much limited to 8GB right now. Those include (but are not limited to)the Voyager/Survivor GT, OCZ ATV Turbos, OCZ Rally 2 Turbos, Patriot Xporter XT (200x), AData MyFlash PD7 series, and SuperTalent DH series. In almost all cases, the 4GB models run faster than the 8GB ones. The most secure drives out there are IronKeys - but you are going to pay a hefty premium for them. My advice is to save your $$ and use TrueCrypt on whatever drive you choose. Also, if you are a windows user, I find that the read/write speeds increase on a truecrypt volume (formated with on NTFS with AES encryption)because windows treats it as a hard drive instead of removable media.

I use a Voyager GT 4GB for my portable apps - other than losing the cap (which Corsair is replacing for me), I have had no problems with it; it is a very fast drive. I also have a SuperTalent Pico C (8gb). The read speed on my Pico is only about 12 MB/sec, however, my average read time is 32-33 mb/sec. So, while transferring files to it is a little (sometimes painfully)slow, running Portable apps on it is about as quick as my Voyager. However, the insanely small size (and price) of it more than makes up for its slow write speed... you can't have it all. LOL.