DNA: The Ultimate Hard Drive

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
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As far as storage devices go, nothing really compares to the amount of information Mother Nature can store in the genetic code in DNA. A new system has been developed by a synthetic biologist at Harvard Medical School (no, the biologist is not synthetic :D), that will store massive amounts of data in DNA and reassemble the information back into a digital form.

To encode a digital file, researchers divide it into tiny blocks of data and convert these data not into the 1s and 0s of typical digital storage media, but rather into DNA’s four-letter alphabet of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts
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Vicinity said:
Isn't that more inline with quantum computing?
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No instead of binary its a base 4 system. So the number of digits required to represent data is less.

You can have one million unique numbers in decimal notation with 6 digits
000000 - 999999.

999999 in decimal is
11110100001000111111

So 20 digits in binary. The effect is not linear. The bigger the number range you try to represent the ratio of digits in decimal to binary goes down. This would be true for base 4 digits but not quite as effective.
 
So what happens when my hard drive catches a cold because my cat sneezed on it? Do I get a lot of corrupted data or does my computer start forcing me to search only for the text string, "Home delivered Meow Mix?"
 
Phoenix333 said:
Actually the read/write speed of DNA is pretty sufficient for supporting life. :p
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Great, how quick can I copy my Steam folder over to my DNA drive? ;)

If you read the loops they had to go to to do this...it quickly becomes apparent this won't even make it to enterprise level solutions in our lifetimes.
 
That's pretty amazing. The day this becomes commercially/financially feasible will be awesome. I hope that day does, in fact, come. lol.
 
Skripka said:
The read/write speed is a killer.
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Yay for working in the genetics field I suppose lol. S phase of a cell cycle (DNA replication part) generally lasts around 6-8 hours in a typical dividing human cell (with a total cycle time of ~24 hours). Considering there are 3164.7 million base pairs in the human genome (female anyway...males are slightly less), I would say that the simultaneous read/write speed isn't bad at all! Sure, it's not on the level of a computer, but it's still pretty darn fast. That's just humans too; there's yeasts and whatnot that run the whole cycle in just a few hours. Granted, I'm not sure if their DNA polymerase is any faster than ours or if it's just because they have so much less to replicate than a human cell.
 
Yeah, well, your data better not get a literal or virtual virus or it's ooopsy time.
 
Majordomo I got a question for you.

Apologize if this has already been addressed but I read about this 3-4 days ago and I was trying to find out where to share it with you guys cuz this is [H]igh impact tech news, but since I didn't know where to link I simply just put it on the SSD and storage forums and it got buried quickly. I'm a news junkie so I'm constantly trying to keep in touch with the events going on in every day ill Na Na life. Anyways, if there's an email or suggestion box I can use, or if you just wanna tell me "fuck off ski" that's cool too :D...
 
Skripka said:
Great, how quick can I copy my Steam folder over to my DNA drive? ;)

If you read the loops they had to go to to do this...it quickly becomes apparent this won't even make it to enterprise level solutions in our lifetimes.
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Cell division is piracy!
 
The biggest issue with Quantum and DNA type storage is converting that information back to a traditional means so that a modern computer can understand it. In reality we not only need to forward our storage means but also how computers process information otherwise we really will hit a "wall" and the out come of that will be bad for us.
 
Skripka said:
Great, how quick can I copy my Steam folder over to my DNA drive? ;)

If you read the loops they had to go to to do this...it quickly becomes apparent this won't even make it to enterprise level solutions in our lifetimes.
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They said 20 years ago that we will NEVER be able to look at individual atoms under a microscope. Shoot, do you remember what they even said about harddrives? :D
 
Sweet.. a few HeLa cells and I'll have the largest computer on earth in a few months! Muaha.. muahaha.. MUAHAHAHAHA!
 
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