News DNA storage group publishes first standards for DNA-based storage — paves the way for broader use by standardizing vendor and codec data

[Admin]

The DNA Data Storage Alliance, a group including SSD-maker Western Digital, has announced its standard for DNA storage.

DNA storage group publishes first standards for DNA-based storage — paves the way for broader use by standardizing vendor and codec data : Read more

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

1 KiB @ $1,100.

We're a long way from mass consumer adoption then.

 

[usertests]

1 KiB @ $1,100.

We're a long way from mass consumer adoption then.

You should see the read speeds.

I think this could catch on for certain companies that want very cold storage, since DNA could last for centuries depending on storage conditions. Way longer than tapes, HDDs, or current optical storage. Sufficient error correction and redundancy can ensure that it's usable even after the sequence degrades in random places.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/how-long-does-dna-last

How Long Does DNA Last?

The body of Richard III has been found beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England, according to experts from the University of Leicester. DNA testing...

slate.com

 

[slightnitpick]

I think this could catch on for certain companies that want very cold storage, since DNA could last for centuries depending on storage conditions.

Proteins undergoing the Maillard reaction have so far lasted half a billion years in fossilized samples. There's a loss of fidelity, but this loss is known and can be compensated for.

Re: the DNA, though. As this DNA probably doesn't need to be propagated, we aren't limited to just the canonical nucleotides, but can use a variety of nucleoside analogs in easily synthesizable single-stranded DNA, or unnatural base pairs in double-stranded DNA.

Sufficient error correction and redundancy can ensure that it's usable even after the sequence degrades in random places.

And of course not all degradation is random. So certain things would become less readable over time than others.

1 KiB @ $1,100.

We're a long way from mass consumer adoption then.

A big issue with those costs are the shear redundancy in the "bytes" used to store the data. They use 8 base pairs, capable of encoding 16 bits of data, to encode each byte of 8 bits of data. As I mentioned in the earlier article I think this might be because they're encoding Unicode, not just ASCII. I wonder if the initial standard will include compression built in?

Regardless of anything, whatever this standard is going to be, I hope it doesn't lock things in too much for further standards. And I bet there will still be specialized solutions that don't use the standards. I can see uses for massively parallel reading and writing (or dispensing) of shorter 10 - 20 nucleotide DNA strands in very large chip arrays. 100 million wells on a chip could allow parallel sequencing of 1 - 2 billion bases simultaneously. With nucleoside analogs this could yield on the order of a gigabyte of storage per chip which could be read in less than a day with adapted current technology, and hopefully much faster with future technology.

 

[duffer9999]

1 KiB @ $1,100.

We're a long way from mass consumer adoption then.

So a 1TB drive would run about a Trillion dollars.