In other news on USB flash drives, the Imation Clip and Pivot drives are designed for durability on the go, with tough casings and sturdy key rings to carry on backpacks, shoulder bags or belt loops.
The Imation Clip is water resistant, and tucks the drive into a soft rubberized casing (around 2 GB $22, 4 GB $68).
The Imation Pivot has a, yes, pivoting design -- The drive tucks in to the protective cap, and rotates out for use. In January, the line was extended to 8 GB, and added Windows Vista ReadyBoost compatibility (1 GB $29, to 8 GB $199).
The new Imation Pivot Plus is the same design, with the addition of built-in hardware security -- 256-bit AES hardware encryption integrated into the drive controller to protect your data (1 GB $69, to 8 GB $249).
The key point here is that the entire drive is protected -- You simply can't store unencrypted content on it. In fact, you can't even access the drive unless you enter the password.
The drive actually is displayed in Windows Explorer as two drives: a read-only CD drive that contains the encryption software, and a second writable removable disk -- which is not mounted until it is unlocked.
The Imation Encryption Manager Plus software on the drive launches automatically under Windows, and installs a driver that permits the drive to be accessed. You can set the drive up with a User password, or configure it in Corporate mode with an additional Administrator password to manage a collection of drives.
With hardware encryption, all the content is always encrypted, so you need not worry as much when you (inevitably) lose a drive.
See my Portable Storage Gallery for details and comparisons on memory cards, USB drives, and hard disk storage.
Find the Imation Clip, Imation Pivot,
and Imation Pivot Plus on Amazon.com