So will there be a 100GB Custom USB Flash Drive on the horizon? According to Samsung there will. Samsung hopes that falling prices for flash memory chips will mean solid-state memory can eventually replace hard drives in laptop computers and other devices. Samsung recently made its first step towards this goal with the announcement of a prototype 16GB custom flash drive based on flash chips. Flash memory has several advantages over hard-disk drive storage: it consumes less power, it has higher resistance to shock, and it’s more reliable because there are no moving parts, it can read and write data faster, and it’s silent in operation. Samsung cites flash memory price drops of around 40 percent in the last year as evidence that flash is quickly getting much cheaper and so 100GB custom USB Flash Drives will not necessarily cost a fortune to buy in the future. “This will be big once people enjoy how much faster and convenient it is to use solid-state disks rather than hard-disk drives,” said a Samsung company spokesman. “We’re starting with 16GB custom flash drives and expanding to 100GB in a couple of years.” Samsung is the world’s number one producer of custom flash drive chips with revenue more than double that of second-ranked Intel.