A prototype USB drive using bug protein to store data in the neighborhood of around 50 terabytes worth of data could be here in less then 18 months.

This idea first started out by coating DVDs with a layer of protein so that one day solid state memory could hold so much information that storing data on your computer hard drive will be obsolete, says Professor V Renugopalakrishnan of the Harvard Medical School in Boston while reporting on his findings at the International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Brisbane this week.

What this will do eventually is eliminate the need for hard drive memory completely, he says. Renugopalakrishnan says high-capacity storage devices like the new protein-based DVDs will be essential to the defense, medical and entertainment industries. These trade in terabytes of information with the transfer of information such as satellite images, imaging scans and movies. You have a compelling need that is not going to be met with the existing magnetic storage technology, he says.