USB 'thumb-up-it's-ASS' drive.

So I've been using a "thumb" drive for about two years now.
Originally I had a crappy purple Lexar 32 or 64 (I forget which) drive that I used often. Then I traded up for a SanDisk 256. Which not only holds MUCH more, it also is designed better and is more "stylish" than the cheap purple plastic of the Lexar.
Now the only problem I ever really had was once my old Lexar just totally died on me and stopped working. Luckily it was still relatively new and the company replaced it (for free!) and was able to salvage all my data off the old defective drive (Also for free! :-D ).
But now with my new SanDisk drive that I’ve used for just about a year now, I've constantly run into Windows (XP & 2000 both) deciding to only save half the file.
I know enough not to just pull the drive without doing a "safe removal".
I do safe removals, but still I get files corrupted and lost data.
This especially sucks because I save important info on my drive such as tax information, subscription information, software keys, account passwords, banking information, account information all on the drive (encrypted, of course).
So I’ve gotten into the habit of copying the files to the drive, waiting 5 minutes AFTER it says it's finished, THEN doing a safe removal. Then still waiting a few more minutes before physically removing the drive.
After disconnecting the drive, I then reconnect it to confirm the data I've copied had saved successfully. THEN I'd still email myself a backup of the data to my gmail account to be sure I don't lose the info.
Fucking drive.

It really pisses me off too because once the file gets corrupted, I basically have to do a reformat of the drive, and recopy all my files back.
Also, I’ve noticed that MS Excel has a fluky bug with saving.
For example, you create a spreadsheet and save it to your hard drive. Then you cut and paste that drive to your USB thumb-drive. All that takes MAYBE 30 seconds.
Now if you took the EXACT SAME spreadsheet, and tried to save it directly to your thumb-drive, it takes like 3 to 4 minutes JUST TO SAVE. And half the time it doesn’t save correctly.
All other files & applications save successfully when saving directly, but not MS Excel.
It’s just another thing that pisses me off.

I really should work on my SmartCat so I don't have to use Excel for this shit. It'd save me a LOT of headaches.

What I'm more and more considering doing is getting an iPod and using that as an external hard drive to transfer and store my files, and put my IMPORTANT files on a thumb drive that is rarely used, in my file-safe.
But before I even think of getting an iPod, I have to deal with my Hiatt-monkey.
TAKE THE FREAKIN BANANA, MONKEY!