The world is churning out so much data that hard-drives may not be able to keep up, leading researchers to look at DNA as a possible storage medium. DNA is ultra compact, and doesn’t degrade over time like cassettes and CDs. In a new study, Yaniv Erlich and Dina Zielinski demonstrate DNA’s full potential and reliability for storing data. The researchers wrote six files—a full computer operating system, a 1895 French film, an Amazon gift card, a computer virus, a Pioneer plaque, and a study by information theorist Claude Shannon—into 72,000 DNA strands, each 200 bases long. They then used sequencing technology to retrieve the data, and software to translate the genetic code back into binary. The files were recovered with no errors. We spoke with Erlich about the results, and what they mean for the future of data storage. https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/dna-could-be-the-future-of-data-storage
Golly, I don't know how to do this. But I have been using CF memory cards very successfully to back up data for long term back up. They come really big now, but I don't use anything bigger than the 32G card which are quite cheap now. It seems they degrade in speed over time but do not fail until long after the speed degradation begins. 10 years now, still working.
