MEMS based storage is a thing, though the most common architecture appears to be basically a magnetic system with a very large number of read/write heads (I thi

MEMS based storage is a thing, though the most common architecture appears to be basically a magnetic system with a very large number of read/write heads (I think: the summary papers I read were extremely vague on the actual read/write/storage mechanism). The issue mostly seems to be the storage density isn't very good: the actual size of a bit is still quite large and the read/write heads also take up a fairly significant amount of space, but throughput is potentially huge because of the many heads operated in parallel. MEMS tends not to operate at the atomic scale, features of the mechanisms are usually a fair bit larger (and mechanisms which make break/make contact are generally difficult to make reliable and long-living in MEMS: surfaces will tend to stick together when they touch and rolling/sliding interfaces will wear away quickly. Almost all industrial MEMs use involves structures which only move by flexing, not the pretty looking gear systems which tend to get media coverage).