"Bacterial DVD Holds 50TB"

[Jumping_Bean514]

Everyone is saying that we can never use 50tb of storage, which is true with our current formats. But with 50tb storage we could eliminate the need for compressing files. We could make everything raw data instead. Which I believe would standardize formats and make files/programs easier to write/edit/upgrade. Also, the quality of files, specifically music, movies, and images would not have to be reduced.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

http://in.tech.yahoo.com/060708/139/65pz8.html

Would be very cool if they got it to work.

Many potentially insurmountable problems: Data surfaces need to be extraordinarily stable: not bacteria but bacteria proteins. Coding for bianry wuld be bruned accross like protein strands>

1) No two protein strands are exactly alike
2) Temperature of the drive would have to be strickly controlled as any changes cause protein length and configuration changes.
3) Media would have to be stored in total dark as protein is light sensitive.
4) Media would have to be coated in such a way that all potential changes in Ph would be eliminated. So a non-pourus electrostatically neutral metal surface wuold have to be used: Gold or Platinum.

Not gonna happen...............I have a friend (MIT electrical engineer working in Silicon Valley) who is working on developing laser read Hard drives with a single Platten made of either gold or platiunum. They are called "atomic hard drives". The lattice wotrk of platinum and gold (pure) are very stable and the data would be encoded as bianary in this waY: Zeros are read as spaces between atoms and 1's as individual atomic surfaces. This system requires no moving parts but the technology to encase the drive and produce a stable temperatures and circuit boards fast enough to read the potential data enclosure are decades away, he says. Storage capacity would be 10 to the 100 millionth tera bits per cubic micron....that is a number that is so big that all the zero's cannot be read in a book the size of the libray of congress!! So a virtual infinite storage enclosure.....beam me up Scotty!!!!!!!!

This is more the reality for current atomic drives, however:

http://colossalstorage.net/home_diskdrive.htm

 

[Apokalipse]

Now that just doesn't make sense.

It should be MOVED, not locked.
It's a good topic... It's just has nothing to do with, "Building, Buying or Upgrading High Performance PC's."

because it was getting near a flame war with the diversion.

 

[HAVOC]

because it was getting near a flame war with the diversion.

oh, yeah. My bad... I didn't see the flametastic threat the first read through... sorry...

 

[triskit]

Many potentially insurmountable problems: Data surfaces need to be extraordinarily stable: not bacteria but bacteria proteins. Coding for bianry wuld be bruned accross like protein strands>

1) No two protein strands are exactly alike
2) Temperature of the drive would have to be strickly controlled as any changes cause protein length and configuration changes.
3) Media would have to be stored in total dark as protein is light sensitive.
4) Media would have to be coated in such a way that all potential changes in Ph would be eliminated. So a non-pourus electrostatically neutral metal surface wuold have to be used: Gold or Platinum.

calling those problems insurmountable might be going a bit too far.

1) They are, for the most part all alike enough to do what they have to do (respond to light). Sure amino acids are misplaced once in a while, but the majority of them would most likely be usable

2) The temperature may not have to be SO strictly controlled, it really depends on the protein. Some proteins have the structural integrity to withstand greater temperature changes, and we can easily breed bacteria that produce proteins that are more resistant to temperature changes. TAQ polymerase, for instance is a protein found in bacteria that thrive in hot springs. It easily maintains its shape at room temperature or at extremely high temperatures.

3) It isnt hard to design a case that sheilds media from light when its outdside of the media reader/ writer (film for instance) And this disk could very well be permanantly within the computer, within a case...

4)That is the most legitimate problem that i see, but a) we dont know how vulnerable the protein is to ph change B) we dont know what the proteins ideal ph range is (it might be very unlikely that the ph would be outside of this... so that may or may not be a problem but in what type of situation are you envisioning the ph change??

im sure that the HARVARD scientist developing this knows a few things about proteins light temp and ph... thats all extremely basic


that atomic drive ish looks pretty cool though

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Wow... this DID go way off topic for a bit there... I think they REALLY jumped the gun on this, and that crappy Yahoo! article missed a few MAJOR points....

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/12/bacteria_could_help_drives_store_terabytes/

The thing they missed is this... (pretty funny, cause I sort of guessed it in my first response...)

As with all theoretical advances in technology, there are several real-life hurdles to overcome before the product can be commercially available. The first and possibly the biggest challenge is getting the proteins to stick on the platters. Professor Renugopalakrishnan also has not found a read/write head for the proteins.

as far as the jumping the gun part, its like saying "A frictionless wheel on a car would DRAMATICALLY improve gas mileage.... we just have to figure out how to make it frictionless...." DUH! not exactly a break-through...

 

[triskit]

haha yeah wow they neglected to mention that in the original article... unless i just missed it. I was kind of curious about how they got the proteins on. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if they can find a way. Seems like a difficult task, but that guy does have a phd in the field of biophysics...

 

[triskit]

one question... does any one else find it weird that they refer to hin as an indian born scientist... the article is from sydney, the research is from the us, so why does the article have to refer to him as an indian born scientist?? its off topic i know, but does anyone else find that weird at all? ive just been wondering about that...


Indian-born scientist developing coated DVD's that can make hard disks obsolete


vs.


Scientist developing coated DVD's that can make hard disks obsolete

 

[The General]

Because India is a third-world country, to be politcally correct, they need to give India credit. Though he was probably schooled in the US or Australia.

I still see no reason for it.

 

[triskit]

yeah all of his post secondary was in the us