So with the potential for devices as small as flash drives to hold as much data in 10 years as the world's largest data centers held only 10 years ago, users like Howard Haile, the director of information systems for Riley County, Kan., see tremendous upside but equally great risks. Haile says, "This would be extremely cost-effective for replicating data off-site for disaster recovery. On the other hand, right now, I don't have to worry about anyone walking out of my offices with my corporate database on a flash drive."

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Carbon nanotubes: a replacement for hard drives and flash memory?

Carbon nanotubes may be used in the production of a high density, nonvolatile random access memory chip that could replace DRAM, flash memory and even hard drives.