DNA Cassette Tape Can Store Every Song Ever Recorded

Researchers in China have developed a 'DNA cassette,' a retro-styled plastic tape embedded with synthetic DNA strands that can store up to 36 petabytes of digital data -- enough to hold every song ever recorded. New Scientist reports: Xingyu Jiang at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Guangdong, China, and his colleagues created the cassette by printing synthetic DNA molecules on to a plastic tape. 'We can design its sequence so that the order of the DNA bases (A, T, C, G) represents digital information, just like 0s and 1s in a computer,' he says. This means it can store any type of digital file, whether text, image, audio or video.

One problem with previous DNA storage techniques is the difficulty in accessing data, so the team then overlaid a series of barcodes on the tape to assist with retrieval. 'This process is like finding a book in the library,' says Jiang. 'We first need to find the shelf corresponding to the book, then find the book on the corresponding shelf.'

The tape is also coated in what the researchers describe as 'crystal armor' made of zeolitic imidazolate, which prevents the DNA bonds from breaking down. That means the cassette could store data for centuries without deteriorating. While a traditional cassette tape could boast around 12 songs on each side, 100 meters of the new DNA cassette tape can hold more than 3 billion pieces of music, at 10 megabytes a song. The total data storage capacity is 36 petabytes of data -- equivalent to 36,000 terabyte hard drives. The research has been published in the journal Science Advances.

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