Data Storage in DNA Google conducted over 30 million web searches in 2019 in the world, people watched 4 million videos on youtube, sent 170,000,000 emails, tweeted 500,000 times and posted over 60,000 photos on Instagram. According to sources By 2020 an estimated 2.8 billion megabytes of data will be created per second and per person globally, which translates into about 500 zettabytes in a single year assuming a world population of 7.8 billion. The magnetic or optical data-storage systems that currently hold this volume of 0s and 1s typically cannot last for more than a century, if that. On top of this, running data centres takes huge amounts of energy. In short, we are about to have a serious data-storage problem that will only become more severe overtime. Progress is being made in an alternative to hard drives: DNA-based data storage. DNA – which consists of long chains of the nucleotides A, T, C and G – is life’s information-storage material. It is already ...
Data Storage in DNA
Google
conducted over 30 million web searches in 2019 in the world, people
watched 4 million videos on youtube, sent 170,000,000 emails, tweeted
500,000 times and posted over 60,000 photos on Instagram.
According
to sources By 2020 an estimated 2.8 billion megabytes of data will be
created per second and per person globally, which translates into
about 500 zettabytes in a single year assuming a world population of
7.8 billion.
The
magnetic or optical data-storage systems that currently hold this
volume of 0s and 1s typically cannot last for more than a century, if
that. On top of this, running data centres takes huge amounts of
energy. In short, we are about to have a serious data-storage problem
that will only become more severe overtime. Progress is being made in
an alternative to hard drives: DNA-based data storage. DNA – which
consists of long chains of the nucleotides A, T, C and G – is
life’s information-storage material.
It
is already routinely sequenced (read), synthesized (written to) and
accurately copied with ease. DNA is also incredibly stable, as has
been demonstrated by the complete genome sequencing of a fossil horse
that lived more than 500,000 years ago. And storing it does not
require much energy. But it is the storage capacity that shines.
DNA
can accurately stow massive amounts of data at a density far
exceeding that of electronic devices. The simple bacterium
Escherichia coli (E. coli), for instance, has a storage density of
about 1019 bits per cubic centimetre, according to calculations
published in 2016 in Nature Materials by George Church of Harvard
University and his colleagues. At that density, all the world’s
current storage needs for a year could be well met by a cube of DNA
measuring about one metre on aside.
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