Personally, I think the hard drive in the Tyros is the way to go. It's a no brainer. you don't have to worry about bringing external media to a gig, losing the thumb drive, having it stolen or broken, etc. Thumb drives are just bigger floppy disks.

The Tyros has a USB/FileMode which makes it super simple to copy and manage files on the folders. My hard disk is quiet and holds 40 gig worth of data. I'm only using about 5 gig at the most.

Al