Data and the need for storage is not a new challenge. Indexing it in a way findability is expedient is important and again, not new. This interesting topic came to us from ARS Technica in their article, “A DNA-based storage system with files and metadata.”
One of the problems created by humanity’s ever-growing capacity to create data we want to hang on to is storage. Compared to most other media, DNA offers phenomenal data densities. If stored in the right conditions, DNA doesn’t require any energy to maintain the data for centuries.
However, DNA is not without its downsides. There is no current standard method of encoding bits in the pattern of bases of a DNA strand. Synthesizing specific sequences is costly and accessing the data using current methods is slow. Sounds like DNA data storage isn’t all that different from any other structured or unstructured data.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
