DNA: The Future of Data Storage?
DNA, with its amazing storage capabilities, could be an innovative solution to the future issue of storage.
In 2018, people conducted 3.88 million searches, sent 159 million emails, watched 4.33 million videos on YouTube, and tweeted 473 thousand times every minute. Each person will have created an estimated 1.7 megabytes of storage per second, and with the current world population of 7.6 billion, this makes a total of a whopping 407 zettabytes or 2 trillion searches per year!
The spinning hard drives and optical SSDs that hold our data typically can’t last more than a century. In other words, our servers are rapidly filling up, and one day, we’re going to have a major storage problem. Furthermore, data centers take a lot of power. Google’s data centers alone use 260 million watts of power, which is enough to consistently power 200,000 homes.
However, a promising solution has emerged: DNA data storage.
What is DNA Data Storage?
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) stores important and complex data about human life and is naturally a great candidate for storing digital data. DNA data storage is an innovative technology that allows us to encode and decode data to and from strands of DNA.
How Does DNA Data Storage Work?
The DNA in our bodies is made up of nucleotides that form pairs in a specific order. There are four different nucleotides in DNA: adenine (A), cytosine ©, guanine (G), and thymine (T). DNA data storage works by encoding digital data sequences (0s and 1s) into DNA sequences (A, C, G, T). The sequenced information is then synthesized into artificial DNA. To retrieve information from this DNA, one must decode the nucleotide sequences from the artificial DNA back into binary data, which is extremely difficult.
To combat this complexity, scientists and researchers at Microsoft and the University of Washington collaborated to create a fully automated DNA data storage solution that can encode and decode data to and from DNA easily.
Pros of DNA Data Storage
- Incredibly High Storage Capacity — DNA has a huge storage capacity. A single gram of synthetic DNA can hold up to 215 zettabytes (215 million gigabytes). This makes DNA ideal for server farms, archives, and other long-term storage.
- Long-Lasting — DNA can last a very long time, in any condition, for tens of thousands of years without needing any special care or treatment. This makes it a perfect choice for long-term storage for things like medical documents and archives.
- Size — DNA is extremely small and cannot be viewed by the naked eye, making it very useful for storing data in a confined space. Server farms will dramatically reduce in size and the entire Internet could be stored in a single room.
Cons of DNA Data Storage
- Cost — Since DNA data storage is new, the price is really high. The cost per megabyte for encoding data is an estimated $12,400, and an extra $220 is needed for retrieval/decoding.
- Read & Write Speeds — DNA has horrendously slow read and write speeds, so it isn’t ideal for real-time storage and activities like streaming video and gaming won't viable at this time. As a result, DNA data storage loses some of its versatility, and as of now, it would only work best for long-term storage.
- Not rewritable and no random access functionality — Once you encode data into DNA, there is no way of making changes to your data without redoing the encoding process. There’s also no random access functionality, which means you can’t access a certain part of data without decoding all of it.
As the human population increases, so does the amount of data needed to be stored. The current data solution used won’t last forever, so it’s time to turn to a different solution. DNA data has an insanely massive storage capacity and long life, both of which are packaged into an incredibly small piece of DNA. It also has its flaws, like the massive cost and dreadfully slow read and write speeds. Thanks to biotechnological advancements and breakthroughs, DNA data storage may be the future medium of storage, but for now, let’s just rely on our hard drives and SSDs.
To learn more about DNA data storage, take a look at these websites:
