Friday format: DNA and data storage solution
According to the staff of Backblaze, which recently conducted an experiment to calculate the duration of the hard drives, some HDDs are able to store information without damage for about 10 years - not so much.
Unfortunately, modern storage devices cannot last forever. That is why researchers are trying to find a way to store data as long as possible - ideally, several million years.
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Perpetual drive
Researchers at Zurich, Switzerland, believe that the answer may lie in the DNA. According to Peter Shandbolt, who wrote on the prospect of storing data for a CNN blog, the structure of the DNA strands is complex and at the same time compact, so “one gram of DNA is theoretically able to hold all the data of large companies like Google and Facebook, and even with a margin. "
Technically speaking, up to 455 exabytes of information can be stored in one gram of DNA, with one exabyte equal to a billion gigabytes.
The process of synthesis of DNA sequences is similar to stringing pearls on a string. In this case, the information is encoded as traditional zeros and ones.
These values ​​are assigned to certain chemical components, monomers, which by means of chemical methods are linked in one chain, forming polymers. To read the recorded information, it is enough to use a mass spectrometer - a device for reading DNA sequences.
Famous DNA Double Helix
"Fossil" data
Information about the genome of a living organism can be quite long in fossils: this was deciphered by the genome of a polar bear that lived 110,000 years ago and the horse's genome, which is 700,000 years old.
According to representatives of the Swiss Higher Technical School of Zurich (ETH Zurich), they want to "combine the storage capabilities of large amounts of data on DNA with the stability of DNA found in fossil remains."
“We found unusual ways of working with DNA that make it fairly stable,” said Robert Grass, a teacher at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biological Sciences at ETH Zurich, in an interview with CNN. “We wanted to tie together the possibilities of DNA, namely the high storage capacity of the data and its archaeological features.”
Thus, the process of storing information will look like this: DNA enclosed in a glass shell (inert and neutral environment) is stored at a low temperature and in a dry state (water and oxygen adversely affect DNA).
In such conditions, the information in its threads may remain intact for several thousand years.
“We were able to ensure that the DNA we created with the information stored on it disintegrates at the same rate as the DNA found in the fossils. If it goes on like this, soon we will have the opportunity to save data for up to a million years. ”
First results
To test how long data can be stored in DNA, scientists coded 83 kilobytes of data.
The material was the Swiss Federal Charter of 1291 and the Archimedes palimpsest. The choice of these documents, according to scientists, shows not only the potential applicability of the method, but also its historical importance. According to representatives of ETH Zurich, these data will remain unchanged from 10,000 to a million years (if the DNA is frozen).
If we talk about the amount of information, then George Church (George Church), a professor of genetics from the Weiss Institute (Harvard), put all previous records in the number of recorded data on DNA on his knees, he and his colleagues managed to achieve a recording density of 5.5 petabs (about 700 terabytes) per cubic millimeter of fluid — he created 70 billion copies of his book on genetics. For modern electronic media, such indicators are still unattainable.
However, as always, there are difficulties in working with DNA repositories, such as the cost of data encryption. However, researchers are confident that as medical technology develops, it will decline.
“Previously, the cost of decoding the human genome was several million dollars. “Today you can spend it for a few hundred dollars,” says Grasse. “New technologies for medical and genomic analysis will soon be introduced into the IT world.”
But the biggest obstacle that does not yet allow the use of DNA to store information in practice is time.
Even using modern decryption technology, reading a DNA molecule takes many hours — several orders of magnitude more than reading a regular file on a computer. Because this type of storage is not suitable for frequently used data.
However, they are perfect for the role of reliable long-term storage - for example, this is a great option for creating "time capsules".
PS Materials on the topic from our blog:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/277969/
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