HP 50g & SD Cards: Performance, Format, Notes

[JDW]

Points I've gleaned from this thread with additional questions:

1. FAT32 is supported only in newer 50g firmware versions, so use FAT16 for compatibility.
2. The boot loader only supports FAT16. Yet another reason to use FAT16 instead of FAT32.
3. Smaller and fewer clusters = faster speed. That means the smaller the SD the better. But small SD cards aren't sold anymore, and small SD cards usually mean slower flash tech too. No win situation here?
4. Large cards (1GB and larger?) slow 50g boot speeds and make the file browser laggy. Logic dictates one should use a card smaller than 1GB, but those aren't sold in most places anymore.
5. The 50g can't transfer faster than 2MB/s. But does that mean an SD card capable of significantly faster speeds will see zero difference inside a 50g versus a 2MB/s card? Does it really matter "when doing backups"?
6. SD card speed matters a lot after you remove it from your 50g and insert it into your computer to transfer files. But fast cards are usually 1GB or larger, which means bigger clusters in larger quantities, potentially cancelling out speed gains from a fast card!
7. It seems the name of the SD card and all files on it should be restricted to 8 characters, with a 3 character file name extension. But are spaces allowed? And is the 3 character extension optional?