What risk is associated with disabling normalization in relational databases?

Disabling normalization in relational databases increases data redundancy and the risk of inconsistency. Normalization is a process that organizes data within a database to reduce redundancy and improve data integrity. When normalization is disabled, the same data may be stored in multiple locations, leading to increased redundancy. This redundancy can result in situations where data becomes inconsistent, as updates may not occur uniformly across all instances of the same data. For example, if a customer's address is stored in two different places, and only one is updated, it leads to differing information within the database, which can compromise the accuracy of reports and data analyses.

The other options, while related to database function, do not directly address the core issue that arises from disabling normalization. Performance may be affected, but it is primarily the redundancy and the consequent inconsistency that are the primary risks associated with this practice.