Hey guys, I've got a question for you.  How big is the block chain going to get?  I ask because I want to make sure the usb drive I use is actually large enough to encrypt an entire client indefinitely.  So I know that as blocks get very old they're no longer saved, but aren't the new blocks larger than the old blocks?  Meaning, won't the size of a full install always increase?

Or then there's the other option, of just using a 8 or 16 GB drive and using it as a full OS+bitcoin client.