DNA as Data Storage
The world creates 2.5 million gigabytes of data per day. So the world is facing a data problem. The amount of data produced globally increases exponentially day by day. So this will create a problem soon. The world keeps creating more and more data but the ability to store those data is becoming less by data. Tham means we need more storage to store those data.
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According to Nature, If every YouTube video we watch, every photo we snap from our phone, and every document we saved was stored on traditional flash memory chips, it would consume 10 to 100 times the expected supply of silicon by 2040. So the resources become thinner day by day.
So it’s now clear that we need another way to store data. And also this new data storage method must be robust and dense. Currently, Data-stored in data centers that are the size of football fields. And we need to place them in a much smaller area. The solution must fulfill the need of transferring data fast and storing valuable data for decades without causing it damage or breakdown.
So, where do you think that we can find such data storage, of course, in the storage that stores our genetic information? DNA. Hard drives use ones and zeros to store data. When it comes to DNA, four chemical bases, adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), and thymine (T) used to store data in DNA. These four compounds connect in pairs from A to T and G to C to create rungs on a double helix ladder. And it turns out you can convert “1” and “0” into these four letters and store complex data in DNA.
Microsoft is one of the pioneers of DNA storage. Microsoft is working with the University of Washington’s Molecular Information Systems Laboratory, or MISL. And they are making some progress in this field. In a research paper, the company announced the first nanoscale DNA storage writer. The research group expects to scale for a DNA write density of 25 x 10^6 sequences per square centimeter, or “three orders of magnitude” (1,000x) more tightly than before. So what makes this important is that this is the first indication of writing at a speed that requires DNA storage.
Microsoft is one of the biggest players in cloud storage. They are turning into DNA storage to get the advantage of density, sustainability, and shelf life, to beat the competition. DNA has the density to store one exabyte or 1 billion gigabytes of data per square inch. That amount is larger than Linear Type Open (LTO) magnetic tape, can provide which is the current best storage method.
What are the advantages of DNA as Data Storage in real life?
According to the International Data Corporation, they predict that the data storage demand increase to 9 Zettabytes by the year 2024. According to Microsoft, it takes only one Zettabyte to download Windows 11 on 15 billion devices. If the current technology is used to store those data it needs to be stored on million of tape cartridges. So if DNA is used instead of that, nine Zettabyte of information can be stored in an area as small as a refrigerator. According to some scientists, every movie ever released can be fit in the footprint of a sugar cube. A freezer would be a better analogy because if data was stored in DNA it can last thousands of years. Also, data loss occurs in tapes after 30 years and even sooner on SSDs or HDDs.
There were only two main problems when it comes to DNA storage. The first one is the write speed and the second one is the cost. So with the minimum write speed within grasp, Microsoft is already pushing ahead with the next phase.
Microsoft told TechRadar, that “ A natural next step is to embed digital logic in the chip to allow individual control of millions of electrode spots to write kilobytes per second of data in DNA. this will bring DNA data storage performance and cost significantly closer to tape,”
Even though this sounds very promising, we are many years away from storing data on DNA. If we manage to overcome the technical complexities, Storing data on DNA is very expensive. According to Eth Zurich’s Robert Grass, even a few megabytes would cost thousands of dollars. When the writing speed is slow, you cannot store data that is frequently used. Researchers are trying to bring us closer to an era where the data we create is stored in the very molecule that contains our genetic information.
Source: Gizmodo