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Microsoft Experiments With DNA Data Storage

Accepted submission by takyon at 2016-04-29 08:58:17
Science

Microsoft is purchasing synthesized strands of DNA [arstechnica.com] to test DNA data storage:

Microsoft is buying ten million strands of DNA [twistbioscience.com] from biology startup Twist Bioscience to investigate the use of genetic material to store data.

The data density of DNA is orders of magnitude higher than conventional storage systems, with 1 gram of DNA able to represent close to 1 billion terabytes (1 zettabyte) of data. DNA is also remarkably robust; DNA fragments thousands of years old have been successfully sequenced. These properties make it an intriguing option for long-term data archiving. Binary data has already been successfully stored as DNA base pairs, with estimates in 2013 suggesting that it would be economically viable for storage of 500 years or more.

At a future price of 2 cents per base pair, or 1 cent per bit (ignoring the need for error correction), a terabyte would cost $80 billion (and weigh a nanogram). Once synthesized, copying it would be as cheap as using a PCR machine [wikipedia.org].

Also at TechCrunch [techcrunch.com].

Related: An Isolated Vault Could Store Our Data on DNA for 2 Million Years [soylentnews.org]
Scientists Store Digital Images in DNA, and Retrieve Them Perfectly [soylentnews.org]


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