Scientists Can Store 2.5 GB Files In DNA

Researchers can store and retrieve data from DNA (TheNextWeb)

JAKARTA – Digital data such as movie files, music, images and so on are experiencing rapid growth, recorded as much as 2.5 million Gigabytes of new data continuing to grow per day. According to data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) there are at least 10 trillion files circulating in cyberspace.

In the midst of increasingly digital data, the problem is the lack of storage space. Any big data requires a large storage space as well.

Now, there is no need to worry about this problem anymore. Because the researchers found an efficient storage area without having to be constrained by space and cost to secure big data.

Launching Slashgear, MIT researchers highlight the potential of DNA as a big data repository. They have published the research in a journal. They claim that all digital data could theoretically be stored in a cup of DNA.

Data storage in DNA is possible due to its high density to accommodate large data. Previously, researchers had tried to store data in DNA. However, this time it focuses on extracting the desired information from a number of pieces of DNA that contain a lot of data.

They proved this ability by using silica particles of 6 micrometers in which 20 images were stored. Short DNA sequences are used for labels containing files. This allowed the researchers to take any image they wanted to pull from the album stored in the DNA.

Although these storage facilities are not very commonly used, in fact DNA provides various benefits when it comes to storing large amounts of data. The researchers assessed the stored data "will be more stable".

"We needed new solutions to store the vast amounts of data collected in this world, especially data archives," said MIT Professor of Biological Engineering, Mark Bathe.

“DNA is a thousand times (more) dense than flash memory, and another interesting property is that once you make a DNA polymer, it doesn't use up any energy. You can write DNA and then keep it forever," added Bathe, quoted from Slashgear.