16GB Flash Drives!

Martin Veitch reports

Samsung will start producing 16 gigabit Nand Flash chips this year, nudging the memory technology towards use in notebook PCs and maybe even edging out hard drives in some products in the next few years.
... the technology could extend battery life because solid-state Flash designs would be far more efficient than hard disks.
"I do think there's a role for Nand Flash in PCs," commented Joe Unsworth of analyst Gartner. "But for the foreseeable future, hard disks have cost advantages." Gartner estimates that 16GB Flash drives will cost from about $90 (£52) in 2007 but Windows Vista is likely to require much larger capacities. Claus Egge of research firm IDC added, "Flash is far from mature [enough to replace hard drives] but it could be competitive soon."
Another scenario sees Flash operating alongside hard disks to cache data and frequently-accessed applications to save on hard drive activity.
Intel also plans to use Flash on chipsets to accelerate performance.

Read more at Flash memory to rival hard drive - vnunet.com.