DNA data storage breaks records

[Terry McCracken]

A book complete with illustrations has been encoded in DNA.

A trio of researchers has encoded a draft of a whole book into DNA. The 5.27-megabit tome contains 53,246 words, 11 JPG image files and a JavaScript program, making it the largest piece of non-biological data ever stored in this way.

DNA has the potential to store huge amounts of information. In theory, two bits of data can be incorporated per nucleotide — the single base unit of a DNA string — so each gram of the double-stranded molecule could store 455 exabytes of data (1 exabyte is 1018 bytes). Such dense packing outstrips inorganic data-storage devices such as flash memory, hard disks or even storage based on quantum-computing methods.

http://www.nature.com/news/dna-data-sto ... ds-1.11194

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

A book complete with illustrations has been encoded in DNA.

A trio of researchers has encoded a draft of a whole book into DNA. The 5.27-megabit tome contains 53,246 words, 11 JPG image files and a JavaScript program, making it the largest piece of non-biological data ever stored in this way.

DNA has the potential to store huge amounts of information. In theory, two bits of data can be incorporated per nucleotide — the single base unit of a DNA string — so each gram of the double-stranded molecule could store 455 exabytes of data (1 exabyte is 1018 bytes). Such dense packing outstrips inorganic data-storage devices such as flash memory, hard disks or even storage based on quantum-computing methods.

http://www.nature.com/news/dna-data-sto ... ds-1.11194

Amazing indeed....

[ernest]

(1 exabyte is 1018 bytes).

1 exabyte is 10^18 bytes

[Leto]

Can chess be solved and stored in DNA?

[Terry McCracken]

Can chess be solved and stored in DNA?

I see no reason why it can't at this time. You're young, wait and see.

[Terry McCracken]

(1 exabyte is 1018 bytes).

1 exabyte is 10^18 bytes

Thanks for your proof reading.

[zullil]

When engine binaries are stored in this manner, cloning will be a real problem.

[Terry McCracken]

When engine binaries are stored in this manner, cloning will be a real problem.

[Don]

(1 exabyte is 1018 bytes).

1 exabyte is 10^18 bytes

Thanks for your proof reading.

Otherwise 500 gig would weight 1 million pounds!

[Don]

Can chess be solved and stored in DNA?

1 gram for 455 exabytes. That's incredible! 1 terabye drives are becoming ubiquitous now and 1 exabyte is 1 million terabytes! But we are talking about 455 exabytes!

Probably your question is whether we can store a 32 man database on such a drive. The short answer is no. You can get the complete 6 man databases which take up about 1.2 from Shredder, a highly compressed format. It has been estimated (according to wikipedia) that 7 man database will require 50-200 terabyte. Even if the branching factor going from 1 database size to the next was 100 (which is extremely optimistic) and a 1 gram drive was built to hold 455 exabytes we might have enough storage to get a 10 man database - far from solving the game.

Such a database would improve the play however, assuming it could be accessed fast enough - which apparently is not going to be the case with these drives which will have very slow access times and will be suitable only for archival storage.

5 and 6 man databases are not big enough to have much overall impact on the strength of the programs - they only start to help in any significant way once you are in very simple endings. But I suspect that with 10 man databases it will start to have a serious impact on the overall strength.