system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is the current consensus on using biological entities for information storage?

Every once in a while I read small news stories about people using dna to store images, or questioning the viability of using dna and rna as future methods of storing information like flash drives. Is anyone familiar with the topic and can give me a summary of how current professionals view this technology?

I am a nutrition science major in college so be gentle with the computer science.
gpt
DNA data storage is sort of in the same category as asteroid mining or a space elevator. The general consensus is that it's plausible at some future point, but the technology and funding isn't there yet. If there was a breakthrough or some major push to pursue it, it could happen in our lifetimes, but who knows what the future will bring.

The big advantage of DNA data storage is that you can store a tremendous amount of data in a very small physical space (~200 TB in 1 gram of DNA). It's also easy to make copies and lasts for thousands of years. The downside is that it's very slow and expensive to read/write.

With current technology, the use case for it would be a situation where you need long-term storage that is highly compact, and cost isn't a consideration. That use case also assumes that current flash storage solutions are too heavy or don't last long enough (~30 years).

So right now there isn't much need for it. The part that generates excitement is that there is a lot of potential there as technology changes. imo it will be used someday, probably to solve a problem that doesn't even exist yet.