DNA Storage
If we consider one DNA base pair as a unit of data, and since there are four types of DNA molecules, then each unit of data can have four possible combinations - the equivalent of two bits of digital data. There are approximately 6.4 billion base pairs in the the DNA of a human cell, so the equivalent of 12.8 billion bits or about 1.6 billion bytes of of digital data. The digital equivalent of one person's DNA should fit on three 650 MB CDs.
Note that if you are only considering the haploid human genome, then we would only consider half of the total, or 800 million bytes of digital data.
Assuming that there is about seven billion people on the planet, it would take 5.6 quintillion bytes of data to hold every person's genome on digital form. That's 5.6 million TB drives.
Assuming Moore's law applies to hard drives (doubling of hard drive space every two years), and that hard drive sizes were 4 TB in 2011, and also assuming that the human population will grow at the medium UN variant projections of population, it would take another twenty-two years for technology to catch up to fit the total world human genome on a single hard drive.
Ain't technology great?
Note that if you are only considering the haploid human genome, then we would only consider half of the total, or 800 million bytes of digital data.
Assuming that there is about seven billion people on the planet, it would take 5.6 quintillion bytes of data to hold every person's genome on digital form. That's 5.6 million TB drives.
Assuming Moore's law applies to hard drives (doubling of hard drive space every two years), and that hard drive sizes were 4 TB in 2011, and also assuming that the human population will grow at the medium UN variant projections of population, it would take another twenty-two years for technology to catch up to fit the total world human genome on a single hard drive.
Ain't technology great?
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