Carbon-based archiving: current progress and future prospects of DNA-based data storage

The information explosion has led to a rapid increase in the amount of data requiring physical storage. However, in the near future, existing storage methods (i.e., magnetic and optical media) will be insufficient to store these exponentially growing data. Therefore, data scientists are continually looking for better, more stable, and space-efficient alternatives to store these huge datasets. Because of its unique biological properties, highly condensed DNA has great potential to become a storage material for the future. Indeed, DNA-based data storage has recently emerged as a promising approach for long-term digital information storage. This review summarizes state-of-the-art methods, including digital-to-DNA coding schemes and the media types used in DNA-based data storage, and provides an overview of recent progress achieved in this field and its exciting future.