Will micro- and nanomechanical systems be the building blocks of tomorrow's storage technologies? Our "Millipede" concept suggests the feasibility of a high-density data storage system based on micromechanical components borrowed from atomic force microscopy (AFM): tiny depressions melted by an AFM tip into a polymer medium represent stored data bits that can then be read by the same tip. This thermomechanical storage technique is capable of achieving data densities in the hundreds of Gb/in2; range, well beyond the expected limits for magnetic recording (60–70 Gb/in2.